"-• 


UBFURV     j 

VMV 

U 


THE 

LINCOLN   MEMORIAL: 

ALBUM-IMMORTELLES. 

ORIGINAL   LIFE  PICTURES,  WITH   AUTOGRAPHS, 

FROM  THE  HANDS  AND  HEARTS  OF  EMINENT 

AMERICANS     AND     EUROPEANS, 

CONTEMPORARIES    OF    THE    GREAT    MARTYR    TO    LIBERTY, 

Cincoln. 


TOGETHER    WITH    EXTRACTS    FROM   HIS    SPEECHES, 
LETTERS  AND   SAYINGS, 


COLLECTED  AND    EDITED 

BY 

OSBORN     H.     OLDROYD. 

WITH    AN    INTRODUCTON    BY 

MATTHEW    SIMPSON,    D.D.,    LT,D.. 

AND    A    SKETCH  OF    THE    PATRIOT'S    LIFE    BY 
HON.  ISAAC    N.   ARNOLD. 


D     L.   GUERNSEY,  PUBLISHER 
61  .CORNHILL,  BOSTON.  MASS. 


\SO1,I>  nSLY  HY  SUBSCRIPTION.} 


COPYRIGHT. 
OSBORN    H.   OLDROYIX 

1882. 


TO 

THE     AMERICAN     PEOPLE, 

THESE 

LITERARY   IMMORTELLES   TO    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN, 
THE     PRESIDENT 

WHO  ROSE  FROM  THE  RANKS  OF  THE   PLAIN  PEOPLE; 

THE     PATRIOT 

WHO  GAVE    HIS    LIFE    FOR  HIS  COUNTRY; 

AND 

THE     LIBERATOR 

WHO    BOUND    UP    THE    UNION,    AND    UNBOUND    THE  SIAVES, 

ARE 

DcMcatci). 


PREFACE. 


IN  offering  this  volume  to  the  public  a  few  words 
from  the  editor  may  not  seem  out  of  place. 
On  the  fifteenth  day  of  April,  1880,  I  was  standing 
near  the  monument  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  waiting  for  the 
Lincoln  Guard  of  Honor  to  begin  their  first  memorial 
service  on  the  fifteenth  anniversary  of  the  death  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  The  gathering  was  a  small  one,  it 
being  only  about  twenty-two  minutes  after  seven  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  As  I  gazed  on  the  pinnacle  of  the 
towering  shaft,  that  marks  the  resting-place  of  him 
whom  I  had  learned  to  love  in  my  boyhood's  years, 
when,  in  the  spirited  campaign  of  1860,  "Old  Abe"  was 
the  watchword  of  every  Republican,  I  fell  to  wondering 
whether  it  might  not  be  possible  for  me  to  contribute 
my  mite  toward  adding  luster  to  the  fame  of  this 
great  product  of  American  institutions.  I  had  begun 
as  early  as  1860  to  collect  trophies  from  his  campaign, 
and  had  ever  since  then  carefully  preserved  every  article 
I  could  secure  that  related  in  any  way  to  his  memory. 
The  first  thought  that  came  into  my  mind,  as  I  stood 
looking  at  that  noble  monument,  was  that  of  building  a 
Memorial  Hall  in  which  to  preserve  the  memorials  I  then 
possessed  and  those  which  I  might  subsequently  secure, 
and  I  then  and  there  adopted  this  plan.  I  have  con- 
tinued up  to  this  time  to  gather  Lincoln  mementos, 
and  have  now  in  my  possession  nearly  two  thousand 
books,  sermons,  eulogies,  poems,  songs,  portraits,  badges, 
autograph  letters,  pins,  medals,  envelopes,  statuettes, 

[Yl 


vi  PREFACE. 

etc.,  etc.  The  fact  is,  I  have  collected  everything  I  could 
find  sacred  to  Lincoln's  memory,  from  a  newspaper  scrap 
to  his  large  cook-stove  and  other  household  articles.  I 
desire  here  to  thank  the  many  friends  to  whom  I  am 
under  obligations  for  valuable  contributions.  I  have  the 
promise  of  several  more,  that  will  be  sent  me  in  due 
time,  and  I  shall  always  be  thankful  for  any  Lincoln 
relic  sent  me,  no  matter  how  trifling  it  may  seem  to  the 
owner.  The  accumulation  of  Lincoln  relics  induced  me 
to  collect  the  opinions  of  the  great  men  of  the  world 
in  regard  to  the  noble  martyr,  in  order  to  demonstrate 
how  universally  Mr.  Lincoln  was  beloved  and  respected. 
Letters  were  sent  to  distinguished  persons  East  aptl  West, 
North  and  South  in  our  country,  as  well  as  to  persons  in 
England,  requesting  them  to  express  their  estimate  of 
Lincoln's  public  and  private  character  and  of  his  ser- 
vices ;  and  the  more  than  two  hundred  responses  to  be 
found  in  this  volume,  over  the  fac-similes  of  the  writer's 
names,  shows  the  unexpected  success  I  met  with  in  this 
effort.  Their  publication  in  book  form,  together  with 
the  other  reminiscences  of  Lincoln  found  in  this  volume, 
will,  I  have  no  doubt,  be  approved  by  the  public.  It  has 
been  my  purpose  to  produce  a  work  the  contents  of 
which  might  in  some  degree  shed  luster  on  the  name  of 
the  immortal  emancipator,  and  the  external  appearance 
of  which  might  be  an  ornament  in  any  house  or  library. 
How  far  I  have  succeeded  in  attaining  the  goal  of  my 
ambition,  of  this  a  generous  public  will  have  to  judge. 
Surely  the  gathering  of  the  material  for  this  volume  has 
been  the  greatest  pleasure  of  my  life.  It  has  been  a 
source  of  profound  gratification  to  me,  not  only  to 
receive  the  many  tributes  of  great  men's  thoughts  upon 
the  life  and  character  of  Lincoln,  but  also  to  visit  the 
old  friends  of  his  boyhood  and  listen  to  their  simple  and 
unvarnished  stories  illustrating  the  goodness  of  his  heart. 
What  a  noble  example  was  his  whole  life  !  I  have  often 
thought  what  a  beautiful  book  for  boys  might  be  made 
out  of  the  boyhood  of  Lincoln  if  the  past  were  collected 


PREFACE.  vii 

and  properly  presented.  All  the  friends  of  his  youth 
whom  I  have  seen  give  testimony  of  the  purity  and 
nobleness  of  his  character ;  they  say  he  always  wanted 
to  see  fair  play  and  that  he  was  honest  and  upright  in 
all  things.  He  found  great  delight  in  helping  any  one 
in  need.  An  old  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln's,  now  living  in 
Petersburg,  111.,  told  me  how  he  at  one  time  was  build- 
ing a  house  and  was  unable  to  make  a  brace  fit.  Mr. 
Lincoln  happened  to  come  that  way,  and  the  former 
said  to  him  that  if  he  would  cut  him  a  brace  he  would 
vote  for  him  the  first  time  he  ran  for  President.  Lincoln 
took  a  slate  and  pencil,  and  after  getting  the  distance 
between  the  joists,  he  estimated  its  dimensions,  made  a 
pattern  and  the  brace  slipped  in,  a  perfect  fit.  "  I  did 
not  vote  for  Lincoln,"  added  the  man  who  related  the 
story,  "  as  I  promised  to  do,  but  I  have  regretted  it 
ever  since."  Few  better  examples  of  industry  could  be 
furnished  to  young  men  than  the  life  of  Lincoln.  He 
was  always  as  busy  as  a  bee.  He  always  carried  some 
good  book  in  his  pocket,  and  when  not  otherwise  engaged 
he  would  read,  and  was  usually  seen  reading  when  going 
to  and  from  his  work.  It  is  hoped  that  the  sketch  of 
Lincoln  given  in  this  work,  the  many  extracts  from  his 
speeches,  and  the  numerous  thoughts  and  utterances  in 
reference  to  his  life  and  character  by  the  foremost  men 
of  our  time  may  be  made  accessible  to  the  youth  of  our 
land,  in  order  that  thus  many  a  young  heart  may  be 
stimulated  to  industry,  honesty,  goodness  and  patriotism, 
and  may  find  encouragement  for  higher  aspirations  and 
good  deeds.  The  names  of  some  persons  will  be  missed 
in  this  work  by  many  of  the  readers.  In  reference  to  this 
I  have  only  to  say  that  the  fault  is  not  mine.  For  some 
reason  or  other  they  did  not  respond  to  my  urgent 
solicitations.  It  now  remains  to  me  to  express  my  most 
hearty  thanks  to  all  those  persons  who  have  so  kindly 
aided  me  in  the  preparation  of  this  volume.  I  am 
particularly  indebted  for  their  special  interest  to  Rev. 
Matthew  Simpson,  Hon.  I.  N.  Arnold,  Prof.  Rasmus  B. 


viii  PREFACE. 

Anderson,  Benson  J.  Lossing.  LL.D.,  Rev.  Theo.  L. 
Cuyler,  T.  W.  S.  Kidd,  Joshua  F.  Speed,  Joseph  Gilles- 
pie  and  Jesse  W.  Fell.  Their  generous  assistance  has 
been  a  great  comfort  and  help  to  me. 

All  I  ask  is  that  with  the  sale  of  this  book  I  may 
realize  some  funds  with  which  to  build  a  Memorial  Hall, 
where  I  may  display  to  the  public,  free  of  charge,  my  life 
work  in  the  collection  of  memorials  and  souvenirs  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  which  will  in  due  time  be  bequeathed 
to  the  public. 

I  am  aware  that  there  are  many  imperfections  in  all 
human  enterprises,  and  am  not  blind  to  the  faults  of 
this  work,  but  I  can  truly  say  that  it  has  not  been  under- 
taken for  the  purpose  of  making  money,  but  solely  as  an 
outcome  of  my  enthusiasm  and  reverence  for  its  great 
hero.  I  have  spared  neither  pains  nor  expense,  and,  in 
view  of  this  fact,  it  may  not  seem  immodest  if  I  bespeak 
for  my  effort  the  generosity  of  the  critic  and  the  liberality 
of  the  public. 


SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  JULY,  1882. 


GENERAL    CONTENTS. 


PACK 

AUTHOR'S  PREFACE, 5 


INDEX     TO    THE      WRITINGS     AND     SPEECHES      OF 

• 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 11 

LIST  OF  CONTRIBUTORS,  . 15 

INTRODUCTION  BY  BISHOP  SIMPSON, 23 

LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  BY  ISAAC  N.  ARNOLD,  .  29 

MISCELLANEOUS, 70 


INDEX 

TO     THE 

WRITINGS,     SPEECHES    AND    SAYINGS 

BY 

Ctncoln. 


First   Political   Speech   when  a  Candidate  for  the  Illinois 

Legislature  in  1832 76 

Extract  from  a  speech  delivered  December,  1839  ...  78 
Resolutions  upon  slavery  in  the  Illinois  Legislature  .  .  80 
An  address  before  the  Springfield  Washingtonian  Temper- 
ance Society,  February  22,  1842  .....  84 
Speech  at  Peoria,  Illinois,  October  16,  1854  ....  98 
Extract  from  a  speech  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  June  26,  1857  100 
Letter  to  Hon.  Stephen  A.  Douglas  .....  102 
Extract  from  a  speech  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  June  17,  1858  .  106 
Extract  from  a  speech  at  Chicago,  Illinois,  July  to,  1858  .  108 
Extract  from  a  speech  delivered  at  Springfield,  Illinois, 

July  17,  1858 112 

Extract  from  a  speech  at  Ottawa,  Illinois,  August  21,  1858     .  114 

Extract  from  a  speech  at  Freeport,  Illinois,  August  27,  1858.  n6 

Extract  from  a  speech  at  Galesburg,  Illinois,  October  7,  1858  120 

Extract  from  a  speech  at  Quincy,  Illinois,  October  13,  1858  .  124 

Speech  at  Alton,  Illinois,  October  15,  1858              .        .        .  130 

Extract  from  a  speech  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  September,  1859  132 

Extract  from  a  speech  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  September,  1859  134 

[xi] 


xii  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Extract  from  a  speech  at  Jonesboro,  Illinois,  September  15 

1858 :  138 

Extract  from  an  address  at  Cooper  Institute,  February  27, 

1860.          ..........  140 

Address  to  the  citizens  of  Springfield,  on  his  departure    for 

Washington,  February  u,  1861 142 

Letter  of  Acceptance .148 

Speech  at  Toledo,  Ohio      ...                ....  150 

Speech  at  Indianapolis,  Indiana 152 

Speech  to  the  members  of  the  Legislature  of  Indiana,  who 

waited  upon  him  at  his  hotel              158 

Speech  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio       .......  160 

Speech  to  the  Ohio  State  Senate 162 

Speech  at  Steubenville,  Ohio            164 

Speech  at  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 166 

Speech  at  Cleveland,  Ohio 168 

Speech  at  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 170 

Speech  at  Syracuse,  N.  Y.        .        .        .        .        .        .        .174 

Speech  at  Utica,  N.  Y.  • 176 

Speech  from  the  steps  of  the  Capitol,  Albany,  N.  Y.     .        .178 

Speech  in  the  Assembly  Hall  at  Albany,  N.  Y.       .        .        .  180 

Speech  at  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y 182 

Speech  at  Peekskill,  N.  Y 184 

Reply  to  the  Mayor  of  New  York           .....  186 

Speech  to  various  Republican  Associations,  New  York.         .  192 

Speech  at  Newark,  New  Jersey.        .         .                ...  194 

Speech  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  Trenton,  New  Jersey     .        .  196 
Speech  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  delivered  in  the  House  of 

Assembly. 198 

Address  to  the  Mayor  and  Citizens  of  Philadelphia.      .         .  200 

Speech  in  Independence  Hall,  at  Philadelphia.       .        .        .  202 

Speech  before  Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia,  Feb..  1861  204 

Speech  at  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania 206 

Speech  before  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  at  Harris- 
burg,  February  22,  1861 208 

Speech  to  the  Mayor  and  Common  Council  of  Washington  210 

Proclamation,  April  15,  1861             212 


INDEX.  xiii 

PAGH 

Reply  to  Governor  Hicks  and  Mayor  Brown.         .         .         .  216 
Message  to  Congress,   in  extra  session,  July  4,  1861          .  222 
Personal  Conference  with  the  Representatives  from  the  Bor- 
der States 224 

Reply  to  Horace  Greeley 226 

Reply  to  a  Religious  Delegation 228 

First  Inaugural  Address            .......  230 

Abolishing  Slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia    .         .         .  234 

First  Annual  Message  to  Congress,  December  3,  1861             .  236 
Proclamation,  relative  to  General  Hunter's  order  declaring 

slaves  within  his  department  free 244 

Reading  the    Emancipation    Proclamation    to    his  Cabinet, 

September  22,  1862     ........  246 

Reply  to  the  Resolutions  of  the  East  Baltimore  Methodist 

Conference  of  1862             24$ 

To  the  Synod   of  Old    School   Presbyterians,  Baltimore.  .  254 

Reply  to  the  Committee  of  the  Lutheran  Synod  of  1862       .  256 

Second  Annual  Message  to  Congress,  December  i,  1862         .  258 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  January  i,  1863.         .         .         .  262 

Reply  to  an  invitation  to  preside   over    a    meeting    of    the 

Christian  Commission        .......  266 

Reply  to  address  from   workingmen,   Manchester,  England  268 

Remarks  made  to  some  friends  New  Year's  evening,  1863     .  270 

From  the  letter  to  Erastus  Corning  and  others       .         .         .  272 

Response  to  a  serenade     . 278 

The  President's  Dispatch          .......  280 

Proclamation     ..........  282 

Reply  to  a  Committee  of  the  Presbyterian  Church         .        .  284 

Letter  to  General  Grant 288 

A  Proclamation,  July  15,  1863 290 

Presentation  of  a  Commission    as    Lieutenant-General    to 

U.  S.  Grant 292 

Letter  to  James  C.  Conkling 294 

Reply  to  the  letter  of  Governor  Seymour,  of  New  York         .  296 

Address  on  the  Battle-Field  of  Gettysburg      ....  298 

Third  Annual  Message  to  Congress         ....  300 

Speech  at  a  Ladies'  Fair  in  Washington          .                 .         .  310 


xiv  INDEX. 


Letter  to  A.  G.  Hodges  .......  312 

Speech  at  the  opening  of  a  Fair  in  Baltimore,  April,  1864    .  314 

Reply  to  a  Committee  from  the  Methodist  Conference  .        .  316 

Response  to  a  delegation  of  the  National  Union  League       .  318 

Speech  at  the  Philadelphia  Fair       ......  320 

From  his  Letter  of  Acceptance        ......  322 

Saving  a  Life    ...         .......  324 

To  whom  it  may  concern          .......  324 

Speech  to  a  serenading  club  of  Pennsylvanians      .         .         .  326 

Address  to  the  Political  Clubs          ......  332 

Interview  with  a  gentleman      .....         .         v  334 

Letter  to  Mrs.  Eliza  P.  Gurney  .......  338 

Reply  to  a  committee  of  loyal  colored  people  of  Baltimore  340 

Remarks  to  the  iSpth  New  York  Regiment    ....  342 

Speech  to  the  i64th  Ohio  .......  344 

Reply  to  a  company  of  clergymen  .....  346 

Speech  to  the  i48th  Ohio  regiment  .....  354 

Remarks  to  a  serenading  party  at  the  White  House      .         .  356 

Observance  of  the  Sabbath       .......  358 

Letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby,  of  Boston      ......  360 

Remarks  to  a  delegation  from  Ohio         .....  362 

Fourth  Annual  Message  to  Congress,  December  6th,  1864    .  364 

Reply  to  an  Illinois  clergyman         .....        ,  366 

Instructions  to  Wm.  H.  Seward,  at  the  Meeting  of  Messrs. 

Stevens,  Hunter  and  Campbell,  at  Fortress  Monroe,  Va.  368 

Second  Inaugural  Address,  delivered  March  3,  1865  .  .  370 

Remarks  upon  the  fall  of  Richmond  .....  372 

A  Verbal  Message  given  to  Hon.  Schuyler  Colfax  .  .  374 
Remark  previous  to  attending  the  theater  on  the  night  of 

his  assassination          ........  375 

Fac-simile  of  the  play-bill  at  Ford's  Theater  on  the  night 

of  April  14,  1865          ........  376 

Fac-simile  Letter  to  J.  W.  Fell,  1859       .....  479 

Autobiography  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  Fac-Simile  .  ,  480 


ALPHABETICAL 

LIST   OF    CONTRIBUTORS. 


Arnold,  Isaac  N.,  Author 29 

Anderson,  Rasmus  B.,  Author 77 

Ayres,  R.  B.,  Major-General  .  .  .  .  -79 

Abbott,  Lyman,  Author  and  Divine  81 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  ex-Min.  to  England  .  .  83 
Arthur,  T.  S.,  Author  .  .  .  .  .  .  -99 

Affleck,  W.  B.,  Lecturer 123 

Allyn,  Robert,         Professor      ......  139 

Andrews,  Israel  Ward,         College  President  .         .         .  388 

Avery,  John,         Professor        .         .         .         .         .         .  525 

Anthony,  Henry  B.,  Statesman  .  .  .  .  .  515 

Botta,  Anna  C.,         Authoress          .         .        .         .  71 

Bennett,  H.  S.,         Chaplain  Fisk  University  .        .         .  105 

Blanchard,  Rufus,         Author  .         .         .         .         .         .  153 

Bellows,  Henry  W.,  Divine  .....  169 

Burnam,  C.  F.,  Lawyer 171 

Bradley,  Joseph  P.,  Justice  Sup.  Court  .  .  173 

Burnside,  Ambrose  E.,  Major-General  .  .  .  175 
Bright,  John,  Member  of  Parliament  .  .  .179 

Bascom,  John,  College  President  ....  185 

Bennett,  Emerson,  Editor 249 

Boutwell,  George  S.,  Statesman .  .  .  .  \ .  267 

Barnum,  P.  T.,  Showman 319 

Barnes,  S.  G.,  Professor 331 

Bailey,  J.  M.,  Journalist 331 

Bancroft,  Cecil  F.  P.,  Professor 339 

Bedell,  Gregory  T.,  Divine 341 

Bradley,  W.  O.,  Lawyer 361 

[xv] 


xviii  LIST    Of     CONTRIBUTORS. 

MM 

Hazen,  William  B.,  Major-General  ...  .  343 
Hancock,  Winfield  S.,  Major-General  v  .  .311 

Hall,  Newman,  Divine  ......  430 

Harrington,  C.  S.,  Professor 435 

Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  ex-President  «  .  .  .  437 

Howells,  William  D.,  Author 407 

Holland,  J.  G.  Author  ......  465 

Howard,  O.  O.,  Major-General 392 

Hopkins,  Louisa  Parsons,  Authoress  .  .  .  397 

Houk,  Leonidas  C.,  Member  of  Congress  .  .  444 

Hatch,  Rufus,  Banker 514 

Herndon,  Wm.  H.,  Lawyer 526 

Julian,  George  W.,  Member  of  Congress  .  .  .  253 

Judd,  Mrs.  Norman  B 520 

Kirkwood,  Samuel  J.,  ex-Secretary  of  Interior  .  .  207 
Kautz,  August  V.,  Major-General  .  .  .  .401 

Kidd,  T.  W.  S.,  Editor 448 

Lossing,  Benson  J.,  Historian 327 

Lanman,  Charles,  Author 151 

Lippincott,  Charles  E.,  General  ....  410 

Larcom,  Lucy,  Authoress 571 

Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  Poet 466 

Meigs,  M.  C.,  Quartermaster-General  .  .  .  .  in 

M'Culloch,  Hugh,  ex-Sec'y  of  Treasury  .  .  .  117 
Merritt,  Wesley,  Brevet  Major-General  .  .  .127 

Morrill,  Lot  M.,  Statesman 137 

Minier,  George  W.,  Merchant  .....  187 
Maynard,  Horace,  ex-Postmaster-General  .  .271 

Meyer,  Albert  J.,  U.  S.  Signal  Officer  .  .  .  297 

Martindale,  E.  B.,  General 309 

Morton,  Levi  P.,  Minister  to  France  .  .  .  .  311 

McLellan,  Isaac,  Poet 313 

Murdoch,  James  E.,  Elocutionist  ....  347 

Morey,  William  C.,  Professor 317 

Marvin,  James,  Professor 391 

Mead,  C.  M.,  Professor 391 

Merrick,  Frederick,  ex-College  President  .  .  428 


LIST    OF.    CONTRIBUTORS.  xix 

PAOK 

McCook,  Anson  G.,  Member  of  Congress  .  .  .  465 

Matthews,  Stanley,  U.  S.  Senator  ....  433 

Miller,  Samuel  F.,  Justice  Supreme  Court  .  .  443 

McNeely,  William,  Farmer 393 

Northrop,  Cyrus,  Professor  .  .  .  .  .  229 

New,  John  C.,  ex-U.  S.  Treasurer  ....  416 

Newton,  William  Wilberforce,  Divine  .  .  .  404 

Nance,  George  Washington,  Farmer  .  .  .  556 

Oglesby,  Richard  J.,        ex-Governor  of  Illinois  .        .        .  227 

Phelps,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  Authoress  .  .  .  21 
Pagliardirri,  Tito,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .72 

Pike,  Albert,  Author 255 

Phillips,  Wendell,        Author  and  Orator       .        .        .  281 
Porter,  Noah,         Author  and  Professor          .         .        .281 

Prime,  Samuel  Irenaeus,         Author,  Editor    .         .         .  285 

Pratt,  C.  E.,         Brigadier-General           ....  287 

Palmer,  Ray,         Poet  and  Divine            ....  289 

Payne,  C.  A.,         College  President          ....  299 

Porter,  Robert  P.,         Journalist      .        .        .        .         .512 

Pomeroy,  E.  C.,         Teacher     ......  560 

Porter,  David  D.,  Admiral 399 

Rice,  Alexander  H.,  ex-Governor  of  Mass.  .  .  .  378 

Ramsey,  Alexander,  ex-Secretary  of  War  .  .  287 

Rector,  Henry  M.,  ex-Governor  of  Arkansas  .  .  505 

Ross,  Alexander  Milton,  Physician  .  .  .  418 

Rollins,  James  S.,  Member  of  Congress  .  .  .  490 

Simpson,  M.,  Author  and  Divine 23 

Speed,  Joshua  F.,         Lawyer  ......  143 

Stoneman,  George,         Major-General     ....  221 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,         Statesman    ....  241 

Shuman,  Andrew,         ex-Lieut.  Gov.  of  Illinois      .         .  245 

Schaff,  Philip,         Author  and  Divine               .        .        .  253 

Sturtevant,  J.  M.,        College  President  ....  273 

Shrigley,  James,         Divine               .         .        .        .        .  335 

Spinner,  F.  E.,  ex-U.  S.  Treasurer  ....  363 

Sherman,  William  T.,  General 367 

Schofield,  Glenni  W.,  Member  of  Congress  .  .  369 


xx  LIST    OF    CONTRIBUTORS. 

F101 

Smith,  Richard,  Journalist 417 

Scott,  L.,  Divine 405 

Strong,  William,  Justice  Supreme  Court  .  .  .  406 
Smyth,  Frederick,  ex-Governor  of  N.  H.  .  .412 

Sherman,  John,  ex-Sec'y  U.  S.  Treasury  .  .  .  428 
Swisshelm,  Jane  Gray,  Authoress  ....  413 

Stoddard,  W.  O.,  Author 434 

Smith,  William  F.,  Major-General  ....  555 

Trovvbridge,  John  Townsend,  Author  ....  157 
Taylor,  A.  A.  E.,  College  President  .  .  .  .386 
Townsend,  E.  D.,  Adjutant-General  .  .  .  504 

Townsend,  George  Alfred,  Poet  and  Novelist  .  .5*3 

Volk,  Leonard  W.,         Sculptor 217 

Whittier,  John  G.,  Poet 101 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  Author  .  .  .  .129 
Winthrop,  Robert  C.,  Statesman  .  .  7  .165 

Warren,  William  F.,  Professor 167 

Williams,  S.  Wells,  Author 177 

Walker,  William,  Lawyer 213 

Wood,  Fernando,  Member  of  Congress  .  .  .  398 
Woodford,  Stewart  L.,  General  ....  445 
Warner,  Willard,  U.  S.  Senator  ....  439 
Waite,  Morrison  R.,  Chief  Justice  ....  467 
Wheildon,  William  Willder,  Author ....  440 


THE  angels  of  your  thoughts  are  climbing  still 
The  shining  ladder  of  his  fame, 
And  have  not  reached  the  top,  nor  ever  will, 

While  this  low  life  pronounces  his  high  name. 

But  yonder,  where  they  dream,  or  dare,  or  do, 

The  "good  "  or  "great  "  beyond  our  reach, 

To  talk  of  him  must  make  old  language  new 
In  heavenly,  as  it  did  in  human,  speech. 


ANDOVER,  MASS.,  NOVEMBER,  1881. 


[xxi] 


INTRODUCTION. 


nr^HE  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  imperishable. 
•*•  His  fame  is  world-wide.  Born  in  comparative 
poverty,  trained  in  obscurity,  mingling  with  the  sons  of 
toil  in  early  manhood,  he  yet  rose  to  one  of  earth's 
proudest  positions,  and  at  his  death  the  world. was  in 
tears.  He  was  not  born  great,  as  the  heir  of  a  great 
name,  or  of  an  estate  ;  yet  he  was  born  great  in  having 
a  strong  intellect  and  a  noble  heart.  Without  the  sur- 
rounding of  friends,  without  the  influence  of  wealth,  he 
rose  slowly  but  surely.  Step  by  step  he  ascended  the 
great  pyramid  until  he  stood  upon  its  lofty  summit.  As 
we  read  history,  how  few  names  survive.  Multiplied 
millions  pass  away  in  every  generation  ;  a  few  hundreds 
only  are  honored  by  coming  ages.  In  early  history  the 
names  which  live  are  chiefly  those  of  warriors  or  founders 
of  nations  ;  but  Lincoln  was  no  warrior  ;  he  drew  no 
sword ;  he  fought  no  bloody  battles  ;  he  had  no  stars 
upon  his  breast.  Others,  as  the  founders  of  schools  of 

philosophy,  have  left  a  name ;  as  Plato,  and  Socrates,  and 

[xxiii] 


x  x  I  v  IN  TROD  UC  T1ON. 

Aristotle.  You  hear  of  Croesus  through  his  untold 
wealth ;  but  Lincoln  was  neither  teacher  nor  millionaire. 
First,  his  name  lives  through  his  honesty  and  unselfish- 
ness, in  his  business,  in  his  profession  of  the  law,  and  in 
all  his  transactions  among  men,  he  gained  the  grand  title 
of  honest.  His  word  was  not  doubted.  No  man  believed 
that  he  ever  betrayed  any  trust. 

When  in  after  life  he  had  millions  under  his  control, 
not  even  an  enemy  whispered  a  suspicion  of  his  illegally 
or  selfishly  controlling  a  dollar  of  public  money.  If  an 
honest  man  is  the  noblest  work  of  God,  then  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's title  to  high  nobility  is  clear  and  unquestioned. 

In  his  busiest  moment,  in  his  most  anxious  hours 
during  the  war,  he  was  ever  ready  to  listen  to  the  story 
of  distress ;  many  a  widow's  heart  was  cheered  by  his 
words  and  acts  of  kindness. 

Secondly,  he  adhered  firmly  to  what  he  believed  to  be 
right  Endowed  with  strong  intellectual  powers,  which 
he  had  carefully  exercised,  he  loved  to  study  great  prin- 
ciples. Deeply  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the 
nation,  he  inquired  how  it  might  become  strong  and  be 
perpetuated.  He  followed  not  the  crowd ;  he  sought 
not  personal  popularity  ;  he  had  faith  in  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  truth  and  right.  Perceiving  the  antagonism 
between  slave  labor  and  free  labor,  espousing  the  cause 
of  equal  rights  and  of  human  freedom,  he  early  became 


INTRODUCTION.  xxv 

the  opponent  of  the  encroachments  of  the  slave  power. 
He  stood  firmly  with  a  small  minority  while  others 
quailed  before  an  imperious  and  threatening  majcrity. 
He  risked  his  position  as  a  leader,  his  reputation  as  a 
statesman,  as  he  disputed  the  right  of  slavery  to  the 
territories,  and  championed  the  cause  of  freedom.  In  his 
speeches  which  he  made  through  his  State  are  embodied 
most  noble  sentiments  and  trenchant  thoughts ;  and 
though  unpopular  for  a  time,  his  sentiments  became  the 
sentiments  of  the  great  West. 

Thirdly,  when,  in  a  season  of  great  national  excite- 
ment, he  was  unexpectedly  called  to  the  Presidency  of  the 
nation,  he  left  his  Western  home  with  a  presentiment 
that  he  would  probably  never  return.  The  dangers  of 
rebellion  and  civil  war  were  before  him.  Threats  of 
treachery  and  assassination  were  heard.  But  he  deter- 
mined, if  needful,  to  lay  down  his  life  for  the  nation. 
He  was  not  a  warrior,  but  he  was  a  hero.  Through  the 
weary  years  of  that  fearful  war  he  bore  anxieties  and 
labors,  and  passed  through  perils  that  were  exhausting 
and  fearful.  He  lived  to  see  the  cause  of  the  nation 
triumph,  to  behold  the  nation  victorious,  and  coming 
peace  smiled  upon  the  land.  Just  at  that  moment  the 
hand  of  the  assassin  sped  the  fatal  ball.  He  died  a 
martyr  for  his  country. 

Fourthly,   in   that   terrible  contest   he   had  the  dis- 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION. 

tinguished  honor  and  power  of  showing  that  "the  pen  is 
mightier  than  the  sword."  Fearful  had  been  the  contest. 
Disaster  had  sometimes  attended  our  armies  ;  despond- 
ency brooded  over  the  minds  of  the  people  until  he 
issued  the  famous  Proclamation  of  Emancipation.  That 
act  became  the  turning-point  of  the  war.  Four  millions 
of  men  were  changed  by  it  from  slaves  to  citizens. 
Manacles  were  melted  by  its  electric  thrill.  Success 
began  to  crowa  the  movements  of  the  army,  and  soon 
triumph  rested  on  our  banners. 

Nor  was  it  only  from  the  millions  of  slaves  that  chains 
had  been  removed ;  the  whole  nation  had  been  in  bond- 
age ;  free  speech  had  been  suppressed.  Men  dared  not 
utter  their  convictions.  An  inquisition  had  been  made 
in  the  postal  service ;  the  pulpit  had  frequently  been 
over-awed  by  excited  assemblies  and  utterances.  Our 
great  nation  was  reproached  by  the  nations  of  the  earth 
as  violating  the  principles  of  freedom  by  holding  men  in 
slavery.  The  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  not  only 
freed  the  slave,  but  freed  the  nation.  Free  speech  was 
restored.  The  pulpit  and  the  press  were  unshackled. 
The  dark  blot  that  had  rested  upon  our  national  honor 
was  removed,  and  the  nation  stood  proudly  a  united  and 
free  people  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  This  act 
linked  the  name  of  Lincoln  with  the  rights  and  progress 
of  humanity,  and  while  human  freedom  and  true  progress 


INTRODUCTION.  xxvii 

continue  shall  that  name  be  held  in  reverence.  We  look 
not  only  to  the  past,  but  his  life  is  a  living  power  for  the 
present  and  the  future.  It  is  a  glowing  commentary  on 
the  principles  of  the  American  Government  and  on  the 
possibilities  of  human  elevation.  In  older  nations  the 
rulers  are  found  in  hereditary  families,  among  names 
that  have  been  noble  for  generations ;  where  wealth  has 
been  accumulated,  and  centuries  of  honored  memories 
have  clustered  around  the  name.  Mr.  Lincoln's  eleva- 
tion shows  that  in  America  every  station  in  life  may  be 
honorable  ;  that  there  is  no  barrier  against  the  humblest ; 
but  that  merit,  wherever  it  exists,  has  the  opportunity  to 
be  known.  His  life  also  is  an  inspiration  for  the  young. 
There  are  few,  indeed,  more  humble  in  their  birth,  more 
obscure  in  their  early  associations,  more  pressed  with 
life's  surroundings  and  cares,  with  fewer  apparent  pros- 
pects of  success ;  to  all  these  his  example  and  his  eleva- 
tion becomes  a  living  power.  What  he  became  they 
may  aspire  to  be ;  and  the  humblest  youth  looking 
through  the  coming  years  beholds  the  possibility  of 
occupying  any  position  to  which  his  talents  and  his 
efforts  may  fit  him. 

Nor  is  it  uninstructive  to  see  how  a  name  unknown 
but  a  few  years  before  may  become  wo'rld-wide.  As  a 
President  of  the  United  States  his  position  was  equal, 
at  least,  to  that  of  the  monarchs  of  Europe;  and  yet 


x  x  v  i  i  i  IN  TROD  UCTION. 

those  monarchs  had  been  unwilling  to  recognize  as  an 
equal  the  President  of  a  youthful  nation,  whose  term  of 
office  was  limited  to  a  few  years.  But  when  suddenly 
smitten,  the  national  sympathy  of  the  masses  and  of  the 
monarchs  was  strongly  touched  ;  words  of  sympathy  and 
condolence  were  sent  from  nearly  every  throne,  and  the 
masses  of  the  people  in  all  their  associations  joined  in  the 
general  mourning,  recognizing  that  a  friend  of  humanity 
had  fallen.  It  is  very  fitting  that  proper  mementos 
should  be  prepared  and  widely  diffused.  The  volume 
now  offered  to  the  public  embraces  some  of  these  me- 
mentos, and  is  a  collection  of  some  of  the  best  thoughts 
and  utterances  in  reference  to  his  distinguished  career. 
It  is  hoped  that  it  may  have  a  wide  circulation,  and  may 
stimulate  many  a  youthful  heart  to  noble  aspirations  and 
to  noble  deeds. 


PHILADELPHIA,  1882. 


ABRAHAM     LINCOLN. 


BY   HON.    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD. 


r  I  ^H  E  noblest  inheritance  we,  Americans,  derive  from 
-L  our  British  ancestors  is  the  memory  and  example 
of  the  great  and  good  men  who  adorn  your  history. 
They  are  as  much  appreciated  and  honored  on  our  side 
of  the  Atlantic  as  on  this.  In  giving  to  the  English- 
speaking  world  Washington  and  Lincoln  we  think  we 
repay,  in  large  part,  our  obligation.  Their  pre-eminence 
in  American  history  is  recognized,  and  the  republic,  which 
the  one  founded  and  the  other  preserved,  has,  already, 
crowned  them  as  models  for  her  children. 

In  the  annals  of  almost  every  great  nation  some 
names  appear  standing  out  clear  and  prominent,  names 
of  those  who  have  influenced  or  controlled  the  great 
events  which  make  up  history.  Such  were  Wallace  and 
Bruce  in  Scotland,  Alfred  and  the  Edwards,  William 
the  Conqueror,  Cromwell,  Pitt,  Nelson  and  Wellington, 
in  England,  and  such,  in  a  still  greater  degree,  were 
Washington  and  Lincoln. 

I  am  here,  from  near  his  home,  with  the  hope  that 

[29] 


30  S.BR.IHAM    LINCOLN. 

I  may,  to  some  extent,  aid  you  in  forming  a  just  and 
true  estimate  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  knew  him,  some- 
what intimately,  in  private  and  public  life  for  more 
than  twenty  years.  We  practiced  law  at  the  same  bar, 
and  during  his  administration,  I  was  a  member  of  Con- 
gress, seeing  him  and  conferring  with  him  often,  and 
therefore,  I  may  hope  without  vanity,  I  trust,  that  I 
shall  be  able  to  contribute  something  of  value  in 
enabling  you  to  judge  of  him.  We  in  America,  as  well 
as  you  in  the  old  world,  believe  that  "blood  will  tell;" 
that  it  is  a  great  blessing  to  have  had  an  honorable 
and  worthy  ancestry.  We  believe  that  moral  principle, 
physical  and  intellectual  vigor,  in  the  forefathers  are 
qualities  likely  to  be  manifested  in  the  descendants. 
Fools  are  not  the  fathers  or  mothers  of  great  men.  I 
claim  for  Lincoln,  humble  as  was  the  station  to  which 
he  was  born  and  rude  and  rough  as  were  his  early 
surroundings,  that  he  had  such  ancestors.  I  mean  that 
his  father  and  mother,  his  grandfather  and  grand- 
mother, and  still  further  back,  however  humble  and 
rugged  their  condition,  were  physically  and  mentally 
strong,  vigorous  men  and  women  ;  hardy  and  successful 
pioneers  on  the  frontier  of  American  civilization. 
They  were  among  the  early  settlers  in  Virginia,  Ken- 
tucky, and  Illinois,  and  knew  how  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves in  the  midst  of  difficulties  and  perils ;  how  to 
live  and  succeed  when  the  weak  would  perish.  These 
ancestors  of  Lincoln,  for  several  generations,  kept  on 
the  very  crest  of  the  wave  of  Western  settlements — 
on  the  frontier,  where  the  struggle  for  life  was  hard 
and  the  strong  alone  survived. 


BY    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  31 

His  grandfather,  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  his  father, 
Thomas,    were     born    in    Rockingham     County,    Vir- 


ginia. 


About  1781,  while  his  father  was  still  a  lad,  his  grand- 
father's family  emigrated  to  Kentucky,  and  was  a  contem- 
porary with  Daniel  Boone,  the  celebrated  Indian  fighter 
and  early  hero  of  that  State.  This,  a  then  wild  and 
wooded  territory,  was  the  scene  of  those  fierce  and 
desperate  conflicts  between  the  settlers  and  the  Indians 
which  gave  it  the  name  of  "  The  dark  and  bloody 
ground." 

When  Thomas  Lincoln,  the  father  of  the  President, 
was  six  years  old,  his  father  (Abraham,  the  grandfather 
of  the  President)  was  shot  and  instantly  killed  by  an 
Indian.  The  boy  and  his  father  were  at  work  in  the  corn- 
field, near  their  log-cabin  home.  Mordecai,  the  elder 
brother  of  the  lad,  at  work  not  far  away,  witnessed  the 
attack.  He  saw  his  father  fall,  and  ran  to  the  cabin,  seized 
his  ready-loaded  rifle  and  springing  to  the  loop-hole  cut 
through  the  logs,  he  saw  the  Indian,  who  had  seized  the 
boy,  carrying  him  away.  Raising  his  rifle  and  aiming  at 
a  silver  medal,  conspicuous  on  the  breast  of  the  Indian, 
he  instantly  fired.  The  Indian  fell,  and  the  lad,  springing 
to  his  feet,  ran  to  the  open  arms  of  his  mother,  at  the 
cabin  door.  Amidst  such  scenes,  the  Lincoln  family  nat- 
urally produced  rude,  rough,  hardy,  and  fearless  men, 
familiar  with  wood-craft ;  men  who  could  meet  the 
extremes  of  exposure  and  fatigue,  who  knew  how  to  find 
food  and  shelter  in  the  forest ;  men  of  great  powers  of 
endurance  —  brave  and  self-rejiant,  true  and  faithful  to 
their  friends  and  dangerous  to  their  enemies.  Men  with 

o 


32  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

minds  to  conceive  and  hands  to  execute  bold  enter- 
prises. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  grandfather,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  is  noted  on  the  surveys  of  Daniel  Boone  as  hav- 
ing purchased  of  the  Government  five  hundred  acres  of 
land.  Thomas  Lincoln,  the  father,  was  also  the  purchaser 
of  government  land,  and  President  Lincoln  left,  as  a  part 
of  his  estate,  a  quarter-section  (one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres),  which  he  had  received  from  the  United  States  for 
services  rendered  in  early  life  as  a  volunteer  soldier,  in  tjie 
Black- Hawk  Indian  war.  Thus  for  three  generations  the 
Lincoln  family  were  land-owners  directly  from  the  Gov- 
ernment. 

Such  was  the  lineage  and  family  from  which  President 
Lincoln  sprung.  Such  was  the  environment  in  which  his 
character  was  developed. 

He  was  born  in  a  log-cabin,  in  Kentucky,  on  the  I2th 
of  February,  1809. 

It  will  aid  you  in  picturing  to  yourself  this  young  man 
and  his  surroundings,  to  know  that,  from  boyhood  to  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  in  winter  his  head  was  protected  from 
the  cold  by  a  cap  made  of  the  skin  of  the  coon,  fox,  or 
prairie-wolf,  and  that  he  often  wore  the  buckskin  breeches 
and  hunting-shirt  of  the  pioneer. 

He  grew  up  to  be  a  man  of  majestic  stature  and  Her- 
culean strength.  Had  he  appeared  in  England  or  Nor- 
mandy, some  centuries  ago,  he  would  have  been  the 
founder  of  some  great  baronial  family,  possibly  of  a 
\ royal  dynasty.*  He  could  have  wielded,  with  ease,  the 
two-handed  sword  of  Guy,  the  great  Earl  of  Warwick,  or 
the  battle-axe  of  Richard  of  the  Lion-heart. 


BY    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  33 

HIS    EDUCATION    AND    TRAINING. 

The  world  is  naturally  interested  in  knowing  what 
was  the  education  and  training  which  fitted  Lincoln  for 
the  great  work  which  he  accomplished.  On  the  extreme 
frontier,  the  means  of  book-learning  was  very  limited. 
The  common  free  schools,  which  now  closely  follow  the 
heels  of  the  pioneer  and  organized  civil  government,  and 
prevail  all  over  the  United  States,  had  not  then  reached 
the  Far  West.  An  itinerant  school-teacher  wandered 
occasionally  into  a  settlement,  opened  a  private  school 
for  a  few  months,  and,  at  such,  Lincoln  attended  at  differ- 
ent times,  in  all  about  twelve  months.  His  mother,  who 
was  a  woman  of  practical  good  sense,  of  strong  physical 
organization,  of  deep  religious  feeling,  gentle  and  self- 
reliant,  taught  him  to  read  and  write. 

Although  she  died  when  he  was  only  nine  years  old, 
she  had  already  laid  deep  the  foundations  of  his  excel- 
lence. Perfect  truthfulness  and  integrity,  love  of  justice, 
self-control,  reverence  for  God,  these  constituted  the  solid 
basis  of  his  character.  These  were  all  implanted  and 
carefully  cultivated  by  his  mother,  and  he  always  spoke 
of  her  with  the  deepest  respect  and  the  most  tender  affec- 
tion. "All  that  I  am,  or  hope  to  be,"  said  he,  when 
President,  "  I  owe  to  my  sainted  mother." 

He  early  manifested  the  most  eager  desire  to  learn, 
but  there  were  no  libraries,  and  few  books  in  the  back 
settlements  in  which  he  lived.  Among  the  stray  volumes 
which  he  found  in  the  possession  of  the  illiterate  families 
by  which  he  was  surrounded,  were  ./Esop's  Fables,  Bun- 
yan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  a  life  of  Washington,  the  poems 

3 


34  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

of  Burns,  and  the  Bible.  To  these  his  reading  was  con- 
fined, and  he  read  them  over  and  over  again,  until  they 
became  as  familiar  almost  as  the  alphabet.  His  memory 
was  marvelous,  and  I  never  yet  met  the  man  more 
familiar  with  the  Bible  than  Abraham  Lincoln.  This 
was  apparent  in  after  life,  both  from  his  conversation  and 
writings,  scarcely  a  speech  or  state  paper  of  his  in  which 
illustrations  and  illusions  from  the  Bible  cannot  be 
found. 

While  a  young  man,  he  made  for  himself,  of  coarse 
paper,  a  scrap-book,  into  which  he  copied  everything 
which  particularly  pleased  him.  He  found  an  old  English 
grammar,  which  he  studied  by  himself;  and  he  formed, 
from  his  constant  study  of  the  Bible,  that  simple,  plain, 
clear  Anglo-Saxon  style,  so  effective  with  the  people.  He 
illustrated  the  maxim  that  it  is  better  to  know  thoroughly 
a  few  good  books  than  to  skim  over  many.  When  fifteen 
years  old,  he  began  (with  a  view  of  improving  himself)  to 
write  on  various  subjects  and  to  practice  in  making  politi- 
cal and  other  speeches.  These  he  made  so  amusing  and 
attractive  that  his  father  had  to  forbid  his  making  them 
in  working-hours,  for,  said  he,  "  when  Abe  begins  to  speak, 
all  the  hands  flock  to  hear  him."  His  memory  was  so 
retentive  that  he  could  repeat,  verbatim,  the  sermons  and 
political  speeches  which  he  heard. 

While  his  days  were  spent  in  hard  manual  labor,  and 
his  evenings  in  study,  he  grew  up  strong  in  body,  health- 
ful in  mind,  with  no  bad  habits ;  no  stain  of  intemperance, 
profanity  or  vice  of  any  kind.  He  used  neither  tobacco 
nor  intoxicating  drinks,  and,  thus  living,  he  grew  to  be 
six  feet  four  inches  high,  and  a  giant  in  strength.  In  all 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  35 

athletic  sports  he  had  no  equal.  I  have  heard  an  old 
comrade  say,  "he  could  strike  the  hardest  blow  with  the 
woodman's  axe,  and  the  maul  of  the  rail-splitter,  jump 
higher,  run  faster  than  any  of  his  fellows,  and  there  were 
none,  far  or  near,  who  could  lay  him  on  his  back."  Kind 
and  cordial,  he  early  developed  so  much  wit  and  humor, 
such  a  capacity  for  narrative  and  story-telling,  that  he  was 
everywhere  a  most  welcome  guest. 

A  LAND  SURVEYOR. 

Like  Washington,  he  became,  in  early  life,  a  good  prac- 
tical surveyor,  and  I  have  in  my  library  the  identical 
book  from  which,  at  eighteen  years  of  age,  he  studied  the 
art  of  surveying.  By  his  skill  and  accuracy,  and  by  the 
neatness  of  his  work,  he  was  sought  after  by  the  settlers, 
to  survey  and  fix  the  boundaries  of  their  farms,  and  in 
this  way,  in  part,  he  earned  a  support  while  he  studied 
law.  In  1837,  self-taught,  he  was  admitted  and  licensed, 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  to  practice  law. 

A   LAWYER. 

It  is  difficult  for  me  to  describe,  and,  perhaps,  more 
difficult  for  you  to  conceive  the  contrast  when  Lincoln 
began  to  practice  law,  between  the  forms  of  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice  in  Westminster  Hall,  and  in  the  rude 
log  court-houses  of  Illinois.  I  recall  to-day  what  was  said 
a  few  years  ago  by  an  Illinois  friend,  when  we  visited,  for 
the  first  time,  Westminster  Abbey,  and  as  we  passed  into 
Westminster  Hall.  "This,"  he  exclaimed,  "this  is  the 


36  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

grandest  forum  in  the  world.  Here  Fox,  Burke,  and 
Sheridan  hurled  their  denunciations  against  Warren  Hast- 
ings. Here  Brougham  defended  Queen  Caroline.  And 
this,"  he  went  on  to  repeat,  in  the  words  of  Macaulay, 
(words  as  familiar  in  America  as  here),  "  This  is  the  great 
hall  of  William  Rufus,  the  hall  which  hav§_resounded  with 
acclamations  at  the  inauguration  of  thirty  kings,  and 
which  has  witnessed  the  trials  of  Bacon  and  Somers  and 
Strafford  and  Charles  the  First."  "And  yet,"  I  replied, 
"  I  have  seen  justice  administered  on  the  prairies  of  Illi- 
nois without  pomp  or  ceremony,  everything  simple  to 
rudeness,  and  yet  when  Lincoln  and  Douglass  led  at  that 
bar,  I  have  seen  justice  administered  by  judges  as  pure,' 
aided  by  advocates  as  eloquent,  if  not  as  learned,  as  any 
who  ever  presided,  or  plead,  in  Westminster  Hall." 

The  common  law  of  England  (said  to  be  the  perfection 
of  human  wisdom)  was  administered  in  both  forums,  and 
the  decisions  of  each  tribunal  were  cited  as  authority  in 
the  other ;  both  illustrating  that  reverence  for,  and  obedi- 
ence to,  law,  which  is  the  glory  of  the  English-speaking 
race. 

Lincoln  was  a  great  lawyer.  He  sought  to  convince 
rather  by  the  application  of  principle  than  by  the  citation 
of  authorities.  On  the  whole,  he  was  stronger  with  the 
jury  than  with  the  court.  I  do  not  know  that  there  has 
ever  been,  in  America,  a  greater  or  more  successful  advo- 
cate before  a  jury,  on  the  right  side,  than  Abraham 
Lincoln.  He  had  a  marvelous  power  of  conciliating  and 
impressing  every  one  in  his  favor.  A  stranger  entering  the 
court,  ignorant  of  the  case,  and  listening  a  few  moments 
to  Lincoln,  would  find  himself  involuntarily  on  his  side 


MY    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  37 

and  wishing  him  success.  He  was  a  quick  and  accurate 
reader  of  character,  and 'seemed  to  comprehend,  almost 
intuitively,  the  peculiarities  of  those  with  whom  he  came 
in  contact.  His  manner  was  so  candid,  his  methods  so 
direct,  so  fair,  he  seemed  so  anxious  that  truth  and 
justice  should  prevail,  that  every  one  wished  him  success. 
He  excelled  in  the  statement  of  his  case.  However  com- 
plicated, he  would  disentangle  it,  and  present  the  impor- 
tant and  turning-point  in  a  way  so  clear  that  all  could 
understand.  Indeed,  his  statement  often  alone  won  his 
cause,  rendering  argument  unnecessary.  The  judges 
would  often  stop  him  by  saying,  "  If  that  is  the  case, 
brother  Lincoln,  we  will  hear  the  other  side." 

His  ability  in  examining  a  witness,  in  bringing  out 
clearly  the  important  facts,  was  only  surpassed  by  his 
skillful  cross-examinations,  He  could  often  compel  a  wit- 
ness to  tell  the  truth,  where  he  meant  to  lie.  He  could 
make  a  jury  laugh,  and  generally  weep,  at  his  pleasure. 
On  the  right  side,  and  when  fraud  or  injustice  were  to  be 
exposed,  or  innocence  vindicated,  he  rose  to  the  highest 
range  of  eloquence,  and  was  irresistible.  But  he  must 
have  faith  in  his  cause  to  bring  out  his  full  strength.  His 
wit  and  humor,  his  quaint  and  homely  illustrations,  his 
inexhaustible  stores  of  anecdote,  always  to  the  point, 
added  greatly  to  his  power  as  a  jury-advocate. 

He  never  misstated  evidence  or  misrepresented  his 
opponent's  case,  but  met  it  fairly  and  squarely. 

He  remained  in  active  practice  until  his  nomination, 
in  May,  1860,  for  the  presidency.  He  was  employed  in 
the  leading  cases  in  both  the  federal  and  state  courts, 
and  had  a  large  clientelage  not  only  in  Illinois,  but 


38  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

was    frequently   called,    on    special   retainers,  to   other 
States. 

AN    ILLINOIS    POLITICIAN. 

By  his  eloquence  and  popularity  he  becameTearly  in 
life,  the  leader  of  the  old  Whig  party,  in  Illinois.  He 
served  as  member  of  the  State  Legislature,  was  the 
candidate  of  his  party  for  speaker,  presidential  elector, 
and  United  States  senator,  and  was  a  member  of  the 
lower  house  of  Congress. 

SLAVERY. 

When  the  independence  of  the  American  republic 
was  established,  African  slavery  was  tolerated  as  a  local 
and  temporary  institution.  It  was  in  conflict  with  the 
moral  sense,  the  religious  convictions  of  the  people,  and 
the  political  principles  on  which  the  government  was 
founded. 

But  having  been  tolerated,  it  soon  became  an  organ- 
ized aggressive  power,  and,  later,  it  became  the  master 
of  the  government.  Conscious  of  its  inherent  weakness, 
it  demanded  and  obtained  additional  territory  for  its 
expansion.  First,  the  great  Louisiana  territory  was 
purchased,  then  Florida,  and  then  Texas. 

By  the  repeal,  in  1854,  of  the  prohibition  of  slavery 
north  of  the  line  of  36°,  30'  of  latitude  (known  in  Amer- 
ica as  the  "  Missouri  Compromise"),  the  slavery  question 
became  the  leading  one  in  American  politics,  and  the 
absorbing  and  exciting  topic  of  discussion.  It  shattered 
into  fragments  the  old  conservative  Whig  party,  with 


BY    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  39 

\vhich  Mr.  Lincoln  had,  theretofore,  acted.  It  divided 
the  Democratic  party,  and  new  parties  were  organized 
upon  issues  growing  directly  out  of  the  question  of 
slavery. 

The  leader  of  that  portion  of  the  Democratic  party 
which  continued,  for  a  time,  to  act  with  the  slavery  party, 
<iwas  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas,  then  representing  Illinois 
in  the  United  States  Senate.  He  was  a  bold,  ambitious, 
able  man,  and  had,  thus  far,  been  uniformly  successful. 
He  had  introduced  and  carried  through  Congress, 
against  the  most  vehement  opposition,  the  repeal  of  the 
law  prohibiting  slavery,  called  the  Missouri  Compromise. 

» 

THE    CONTEST    BETWEEN     FREEDOM    AND    SLAVERY   IN    THE 

TERRITORIES. 

The  issue  having  been  now  distinctly  made  between 
freedom  and  the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  territories, 
Lincoln  and  Douglas,  the  leaders  of  the  Free-soil  and 
Democratic  parties,  became  more  than  ever  antagonized. 
The  conflict  between  freedom  and  slavery  now  became 
earnest,  fierce,  and  violent,  beyond  all  previous  political 
controversies,  and  from  this  time  on,  Lincoln  plead  the 
cause  of  liberty  with  an  energy,  ability,  and  eloquence, 
which  rapidly  gained  for  him  a  national  reputation. 
From  this  time  on,  through  the  tremendous  struggle,  it 
was  he  who  grasped  the  helm  and  led  his  party  to  victory. 
Conscious  of  a  great  cause,  inspired  by  agenerous  love  of 
liberty,  and  animated  by  the  moral  sublimity  of  his  great 
theme,  he  proclaimed  his  determination,  ever  thereafter, 
"to  speak  for  freedom,  and  against  slavery,  until  every- 


40  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

where  the  sun  shall  shine,  the  rain  shall  fall,  and  the  wind 
blow  upon  no  man  who  goes  forth  to  unrequited  toil." 


THE    LINCOLN    AND    DOUGLAS   DEBATE. 

The  great  debate  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  in 
1858,  was,  unquestionably,  both  with  reference  to  the. 
ability  of  the  speakers  and  its  influence  upon  opinion  and 
events,  the  most  important  in  American  history.  I  do 
not  think  I  do  injustice  to  others,  nor  over-estimate  their 
importance,  when  I  say  that  the  speeches  of  Lincoln  pub- 
lished, circulated,  and  read  throughout  the  Free  States, 
did  more  than  any  other  agency  in  creating  the  public 
opinion,  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  overthrow  of 
slavery.  The  speeches  of  J  ohn  Quincy  Adams,  and  those 
of  Senator  Sumner,  were  more  learned  and  scholarly, 
and  those  of  Lovejoy  and  Wendell  Phillips  were  more 
vehement  and  impassioned  ;  Senators  Seward,  Chase,  and 
Hale  spoke  from  a  more  conspicuous  forum,  but  Lincoln's 
speeches  were  as  philosophic,  as  able,  as  earnest  as  any, 
and  his  manner  had  a  simplicity  and  directness,  a  clear- 
ness of  illustration,  and  his  language  a  plainness,  a  vigor, 
an  Anglo-Saxon  strength,  better  adapted  than  any  other, 
to  reach  and  influence  the  understanding  and  sentiment 
of  the  common  people. 

At  the  time  of  this  memorable  discussion,  both  Lincoln 
and  Douglas  were  in  the  full  maturity  of  their  powers, 
Douglas  being  forty-five  and  Lincoln  forty-nine  years  old. 
Douglas  had  had  a  long  training  and  experience  as  a 
popular  speaker.  On  the  hustings  (stump,  as  we  say  in 
America)  and  in  Congress,  and,  especially  in  the  United 


BY    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  4' 

States  Senate,  he  had  been  accustomed  to  meet  the  ablest 
debaters  of  his  State  and  of  the  Nation. 

His  friends  insisted  that  never,  either  in  conflict  with 
a  single  opponent,  or  when  repelling  the  assaults  of  a 
whole  party,  had  he  been  discomfited.  His  manner  was 
bold,  vigorous,  and  aggressive.  He  was  ready,  fertile  in 
resources,  familiar  with  political  history,  strong  and  severe 
in  denunciation,  and  he  handled,  with  skill,  all  the 
weapons  of  the  dialectician.  His  iron  will,  tireless  energy, 
united  with  physical  and  moral  courage,  and  great  per- 
sonal magnetism,  made  him  a  natural  leader,  and  gave 
him  personal  popularity. 

Lincoln  was  also  now  a  thoroughly  trained  speaker. 
He  had  contended  successfully  at  the  bar,  in  the  legisla- 
ture, and  before  the  people,  with  the  ablest  men  of  the 
West,  including  Douglas,  with  whom  he  always  rather 
sought  than  avoided  a  discussion.  But  he  was  a  courte- 
ous and  generous  opponent,  as  is  illustrated  by  the  follow- 
ing beautiful  allusion  to  his  rival,  made  in  1856,  in  one 
of  their  joint  debates.  "  Twenty  years  ago,  Judge  Doug- 
las and  I  first  became  acquainted ;  we  were  both  young 
then  ;  he  a  trifle  younger  than  I.  Even  then,  we  were 
both  ambitious,  I,  perhaps,  quite  as  much  as  he.  With 
me,  the  race  of  ambition  has  been  a  flat  failure.  With 
him,  it  has  been  a  splendid  success.  His  name  fills  the 
nation,  and  it  is  not  unknown -in  foreign  lands.  I  affect 
no  contempt  for  the  high  eminence  he  has  reached ;  so 
reached,  that  the  oppressed  of  my  species  might  have 
shared  with  me  in  the  elevation,  I  would  rather  stand  on 
that  eminence  than  wear  the  richest  crown  that  ever 
pressed  a  monarch's  brow." 


42  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

We  know,  and  the  world  knows,  that  Lincoln  did 
reach  that  high,  nay,  far  higher  eminence,  and  that  he 
did  reach  it  in  such  away  that  the  "oppressed"  did  share 
with  him  in  the  elevation. 

Such  were  the  champions  who,  in  1858,  were  to  dis- 
cuss, before  the  voters  of  Illinois,  and  with  the  whole 
nation  as  spectators,  the  political  questions  then  pending, 
and  especially  the  vital  questions  relating  to  slavery.  It 
was  not  a  single  combat,  but  extended  through  a  whole 
campaign. 

On  the  return  of  Douglas  from  Washington,  to 
Illinois,  in  July,  1858,  Lincoln  and  Douglas  being  candi- 
dates for  the  Senate,  the  former  challenged  his  rival  to  a 
series  of  joint  debates,  to  be  held  at  the  principal  towns 
in  the  State.  The  challenge  was  accepted,  and  it  was 
agreed  that  each  discussion  should  occupy  three  hours, 
that  the  speakers  should  alternate  in  the  opening  and  the 
close — the  opening  speech  to  occupy  one  hour,  the  reply 
one  hour  and  a-half,  and  the  close  half  an  hour.  The 
meetings  were  held  in  the  open  air,  for  no  hall  could  hold 
the  vast  crowds  which  attended. 

In  addition  to  the  immense  mass  of  hearers,  reporters, 
from  all  the  principal  newspapers  in  the  country,  attended, 
so  that  the  morning  after  each  debate,  the  speeches  were 
published,  and  eagerly  read  by  a  large  part,  perhaps  a 
majority,  of  all  the  voters -of  the  United  States. 

The  attention  of  the  American  people  was  thus 
arrested,  and  they  watched  with  intense  interest,  and 
devoured  every  argument  of  the  champions. 

Each  of  these  great  men,  I  doubt  not,  at  that  time, 
sincerely  believed  he  was  right.  Douglas's  ardor,  while 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  43 

in  such  a  conflict,  would  make  him  think,  for  the  time 
being,  he  was  right,  and  I  knoiv  that  Lincoln  argued  for 
freedom  against  the  extension  of  slavery  with  the  most 
profound  conviction  that  on  the  result  hung  the  fate  of 
his  country.  Lincoln  had  two  advantages  over  Douglas; 
he  had  the  best  side  of  the  question,  and  the  best  temper. 
He  was  always  good-humored,  always  had  an  apt  story 
for  illustration,  while  Douglas  sometimes,  when  hard 
pressed,  was  irritable. 

Douglas  carried  away  the  most  popular  applause,  but 
Lincoln  made  the  deeper  and  more  lasting  impression. 
Douglas  did  not  disdain  an  immediate  ad  captandum 
triumph,  while  Lincoln  aimed  at  permanent  conviction. 
Sometimes,  when  Lincoln's  friends  urged  him  to  raise  a 
storm  of  applause  (which  he  could  always  do  by  his 
happy  illustrations  and  amusing  stories),  he  refused,  say- 
ing the  occasion  was  too  serious,  the  issue  too  grave. 
"  I  do  not  seek  applause,"  said  he,  "  nor  to  amuse  the 
people ;  I  want  to  convince  them." 

It  was  often  observed,  during  this  canvass,  that  while 
Douglas  was  sometimes  greeted  with  the  loudest  cheers, 
when  Lincoln  closed,  the  people  seemed  solemn  and 
serious,  and  could  be  heard,  all  through  the  crowd, 
gravely  and  anxiously  discussing  the  topics  on  which  he 
had  been  speaking. 

Douglas  secured  the  immediate  object  of  the  strug- 
gle, but  the  manly  bearing,  the  vigorous  logic,  the  hon- 
esty and  sincerity,  the  great  intellectual  powers,  exhibited 
by  Mr.  Lincoln,  prepared  the  way,  and,  two  years  later, 
secured  his  nomination  and  election  to  the  presidency. 
It  is  a  touching  incident,  illustrating  the  patriotism  of 


44  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

both  these  statesmen,  that,  widely  as  they  differed,  and 
keen  as  had  been  their  rivalry,  just  as  soon  as  the  life  of 
the  republic  was  menaced  by  treason,  they  joined 
hands,  to  shield  and  save  the  country  they  loved. 

The  echo  and  the  prophecy  of  this  great  debate  was 
heard,  and  inspired  hope  in  the  far-off  cotton  and  rice- 
fields  of  the  South.  The  toiling  blacks,  to  use  the  words 
of  Whittier,  began  hopefully  to  pray : 

"  We  pray  de  Lord  He  gib  us  signs 

Dat  some  day  we  be  free. 
De  Norf  wind  tell  it  to  de  pines, 
De  wild  duck  to  de  sea. 

"We  link  it  when  de  church-bell  ring, 

We  dream  it  in  de  dream, 
De  rice-bird  mean  it  when  he  sing, 
De  eagle  when  he  scream." 

THE   COOPER   INSTITUTE    SPEECH. 

In  February,  1860,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  called  to  address 
the  people  of  New  York,  and,  speaking  to  a  vast  audi- 
ence, at  the  Cooper  Institute  (the  Exeter  Hall  of  the 
United  States),  the  poet  Bryant  presiding,  he  made, 
perhaps,  the  most  learned,  logical,  and  exhaustive 
speech  to  be  found  in  American  anti-slavery  litera- 
ture. The  question  was,  the  power  of  the  National 
Government  to  exclude  slavery  from  the  territories. 
The  orator  from  the  prairies,  the  morning  after  this 
speech,  awoke  to  find  himself  famous. 

He  closed  with  these  words,  "  Let  us  have  faith  that 
right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us,  to  the  end, 
do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it." 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  45 

This  address  was  the  carefully  finished  product  of, 
not  an  orator  and  statesman  only,  but  also  of  an  accurate 
student  of  American  history.  It  confirmed  and  elevated 
the  reputation  he  had  already  acquired  in  the  Douglas 
debates,  and  caused  his  nomination  and  election  to  the 
presidency. 

If  time  permitted,  I  would  like  to  follow  Mr.  Lincoln, 
step  by  step,  to  enumerate  his  measures  one  after  another, 
until,  by  prudence  and  courage,  and  matchless  states- 
manship, he  led  the  loyal  people  of  the  republic  to  the 
final  and  complete  overthrow  of  slavery  and  the  resto- 
ration of  the  Union. 

From  the  time  he  left  his  humble  home,  in  Illinois, 
to  assume  the  responsibilities  of  power,  the  political 
horizon  black  with  treason  and  rebellion,  the  terrific 
thunder-clouds, — the  tempest  which  had  been  gathering 
and  growing  more  black  and  threatening  for  years,  now 
ready  to  explode, — on  and  on,  through  long  years  of 
bloody  war,  down  to  his  final  triumph  and  death  —  what 
a  drama!  His  eventful  life  terminated  by  his  tragic 
death,  has  it  not  the  dramatic  unities  and  the  awful 
ending  of  the  Old  Greek  tragedy? 

V 

HIS    FAREWELL   TO    HIS    NEIGHBORS, 

I  know  of  nothing,  in  history,  more  pathetic  than  the 
scene  when  he  bade  good-bye  to  his  old  friends  and 
neighbors.  Conscious  of  the  difficulties  and  dangers 
before  him,  difficulties  which  seemed  almost  insurmount- 
able, with  a  sadness  as  though  a  presentiment  that  he 
should  return  no  more  was  pressing  upon  him,  but  with 


46  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

a  deep  religious  trust  which  was  characteristic,  on  the 
platform  of  the  rail-carriage,  which  was  to  bear  him  away 
to  the  capital,  he  paused  and  said,  "  No  one  can  realize 
the  sadness  I  feel  at  this  parting.  Here  I  have  lived  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Here  my  children  were 
born,  and  here  one  of  them  lies  buried.  I  know  not  how 
soon  I  shall  see  you  again.  I  go  to  assume  a  task  more 
difficult  than  that  which  has  devolved  upon  any  other 
man  since  the  days  of  Washington.  He  never  would 
have  succeeded  but  for  the  aid  of  Divine  Providence, 
upon  which,  at  all  times,  he  relied.  I 

hope  you,  my  dear  friends,  will  all  pray  that  I  may  receive 
that  Divine  assistance,  without  which  I  cannot  succeed, 
but  with  which,  success  is  certain." 

And  as  he  waved  his  hand  in  farewell  to  the  old 
home,  to  which  he  was  never  to  return,  he  heard  the 
response  from  many  old  friends,  "  God  bless  and  keep 
you."  "God  protect  you  from  all  traitors."  His  neigh- 
bors "sorrowing  most  of  all,"  for  the  fear  "that  they 
should  see  his  face  no  more." 


HIS   INAUGURAL   AND    APPEAL    FOR   PEACE. 

* 

In  his  inaugural  address,  spoken  in  the  open  air,  and 
from  the  eastern  portico  of  the  Capitol,  and  heard  by 
thrice  ten  thousand  people,  on  the  very  verge  of  civil 
war,  he  made  a  most  earnest  appeal  for  peace.  He  gave 
the  most  solemn  assurance,  that  "  the  property,  peace, 
and  security  of  no  portion  of  the  republic  should  be 
endangered  by  his  administration."  But  he  declared, 
with  firmness,  that  the  union  of  the  States  must  be  "  per- 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  47 

petual,"  and  that  he  should  "execute  the  laws  faithfully 
in  every  State."  "  In  doing  this,"  said  he,  "  there  need  be 
no  bloodshed  nor  violence,  nor  shall  there  be,  unless 
forced  upon  the  national  authority."  In  regard  to  the 
difficulties  which  thus  divided  the  people,  he  appealed  to 
all  to  abstain  from  precipitate  action,  assuring  them  that 
intelligence,  patriotism,  and  a  firm  reliance  on  Him,  who 
has  never  yet  forsaken  the  republic,  "  were  competent 
to  adjust,  in  the  best  way,  all  existing  troubles." 

His  closing  appeal,  against  civil  war,  was  most  touch- 
ing, "  In  your  hands,"  said  he,  and  his  voice  for  the  first 
time  faltered,  "  In  your  hands,  and  not  in  mine,  are  the 
momentous  issues  of  civil  war."  "  You  can 

have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors." 
"  I  am,"  continued  he,  "loath to  close;  we  are 
not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies. 
Though  passion  may  strain,  it  must  not  break,  the  bonds 
of  affection." 

The  answer  to  these  appeals  was  the  attack  upon 
Fort  Sumter,  and  immediately  broke  loose  all  the  mad- 
dening passions  which  riot  in  blood  and  carnage  and 
civil  war. 

I  know  not  how  I  can  better  picture  and  illustrate 
the  condition  of  affairs,  and  of  public  feeling,  at  that 
time,  than  by  narrating  two  or  three  incidents. 

DOUGLAS'S  PROPHECY,  JANUARY  i,  1861. 

In  January,  1861,  Senator  Douglas,  then  lately  a  can- 
didate for  the  presidency,  with  Mrs.  Douglas,  one  of  the 
beautiful  and  fascinating  women  in  America,  a  relative 


48  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

of  Mrs.  Madison,  occupied,  at  Washington,  one  of  the 
most  magnificent  blocks  of  dwellings,  called  the  "  Minne- 
sota Block."  On  New  Year's  day,  1861,  General  Charles 
Stewart,  of  New  York,  from  whose  lips  I  write  an 
account  of  the  incident,  says, 

"  I  was  making  a  New  Year's  call  on  Senator  Doug- 
las ;  after  some  conversation,  I  asked  him, 

"  '  What  will  be  the  result,  Senator,  of  the  efforts  of 
Jefferson  Davis,  and  his  associates,  to  divide  the  Union  ?' 
We  were,"  said  Stewart,  "  sitting  on  the  sofa  together, 
when  I  asked  the  question.  Douglas  rose,  walked 
rapidly  up  and  down  the  room  for  a  moment,  and  then 
pausing,  he  exclaimed,  with  deep  feeling  and  excitement: 

"  '  The  Cotton  States  are  making  an  effort  to  draw  in 
the  Border  States,  to  their  schemes  of  secession,  and  I 
am  but  too  fearful  they  will  succeed.  If  they  do,  there 
will  be  the  most  fearful  civil  war  the  world  has  ever  seen, 
lasting  for  years.' 

"  Pausing  a  moment,  he  looked  like  one  inspired, 
while  he  proceeded :  *  Virginia,  over  yonder,  across  the 
Potomac/  pointing  toward  Arlington,  'will  become  a  char- 
nel-house— but  in  the  end  the  Union  will  triumph.  They 
will  try,'  he  continued,  '  to  get  possession  of  this  capital, 
to  give  them  prestige  abroad,  but  in  that  effort  they  will 
never  succeed  ;  the  North  will  rise  en  masse  to  defend  it. 
But  Washington  will  become  a  city  of  hospitals,  the 
churches  will  be  used  for  the  sick  and  wounded.  This 
house,'  he  continued,  '  the  Minnesota  Block,  will  be 
devoted  to  that  purpose  before  the  end  of  the  war.' 

"  Every  word  he  said  was  literally  fulfilled — all  the 
churches  nearly  were  used  for  the  wounded,  and  the 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  49 

Minnesota  Block,  and  the  very  room  in  which  this  decla- 
ration was  made,  became  the  '  Douglas  Hospital.' 

"  What  justification  for  all  this  ?  '  said  Stewart. 

"  'There  is  no  justification,'  replied  Douglas. 

"  '  I  will  go  as  far  as  the  Constitution  will  permit  to 
maintain  their  just  rights.  But,'  said  he,  rising  upon  his 
feet  and  raising  his  arm,  'if  the  Southern  States  attempt 
to  secede,  I  am  in  favor  of  their  having  just  so  many 
slaves,  and  just  so  much  slave  territory,  as  they  can  hold 
at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  and  no  more.' ' 

WILL   THE   NORTH    FIGHT? 

Many  Southern  leaders  believed  there  would  be  no 
serious  war,  and  labored  industriously  to  impress  this 
idea  on  the  Southern  people. 

Benjamin  F.  Butler,  who,  as  a  delegate  from  Massa- 
chusetts, to  the  Charlestown  Convention,  had  voted 
many  times  for  Breckenridge,  the  extreme  Southern 
candidate  for  president,  came  to  Washington,  in  the  win- 
ter of  1860-1,  to  inquire  of  his  old  associates  what  they 
meant  by  their  threats. 

"We  mean,"  replied  they,  "we  mean  separation  —  a 
Southern  Confederacy.  We  will  have  our  independence, 
a  Southern  government — with  no  discordant  elements." 

"Are  you  prepared  for  war?"  said  Butler,  coolly. 

"  Oh,  there  will  be  no  war  ;  the  North  won't  fight." 

"  The  North  will  fight,"  said  Butler;  "  the  North  will 
send  the  last  man  and  expend  the  last  dollar  to  maintain 
the  Government." 

"But,"  replied  Butler's  Southern  friends,  "the  North 
can't  fight,  we  have  too  many  allies  there." 

4 


50  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

"You  have  friends,"  responded  Butler,  "in  the  North, 
who  will  stand  by  you  so  long  as  you  fight  your  battles 
in  the  Union,  but  the  moment  you  fire  on  the  flag,  the 
North  will  be  a  unit  against  you.  And,"  Butler  con- 
tinued, "you  may  be  assured  that  if  war  comes,  slav- 
ery ends" 

THE   SPECIAL    SESSION   OF   CONGRESS,    JULY,    1 86 1 

On  the  brink  of  this  civil  war,  the  President  sum- 
moned Congress  to  meet  on  the  4th  of  July,  1861,  the 
anniversary  of  our  independence.  Seven  States  had 
already  seceded,  were  in  open  revolt,  and  the  chairs  of 
their  representatives,  in  both  houses  of  Congress,  were 
vacant.  It  needed  but  a  glance  at  these  so  numerous 
vacant  seats  to  realize  the  extent  of  the  defection,  the 
gravity  of  the  situation,  and  the  magnitude  of  the  impend- 
ing struggle.  The  old  pro-slavery  leaders  were  absent, 
some  in  the  rebel  government,  set  up  at  Richmond, 
and  others  marshalling  troops  in  the  field.  Hostile 
armies  were  gathering,  and  from  the  dome  of  the  Cap- 
itol, across  the  Potomac  and  on  toward  Fairfax,  in 
Virginia,  could  be  seen  the  Confederate  flag. 

Breckenridge,  late  the  Southern  candidate  for  Presi- 
dent, now  Senator  from  Kentucky,  and  soon  to  lead  a 
rebel  army,  still  lingered  in  the  Senate.  Like  Catiline 
among  the  Roman  Senators,  he  was  regarded  with 
aversion  and  distrust.  Gloomy  and,  perhaps,  sorrowful 
he  said,  "  I  can  only  look  with  sadness  on  the  melancholy 
drama  that  is  being  enacted." 

Pardon  the  digression,  while  I  relate  an  incident 
which  occurred  in  the  Senate,  at  this  special  session. 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  51 

Senator  Baker,  of  Oregon,  was  making  a  brilliant  and 
impassioned  reply  to  a  speech  of  Breckenridge,  in  which 
he  denounced  the  Kentucky  Senator,  for  giving  aid  and 
encouragement  to  the  enemy,  by  his  speeches.  At 
length  he  paused,  and,  turning  toward  Breckenridge,  and 
fixing  his  eye  upon  him,  asked,  "  What  would  have  been 
thought  if,  after  the  battle  of  Cannae,  a  Roman  Senator 
had  risen,  amidst  the  Conscript  Fathers,  and  denounced 
the  war,  and  opposed  all  measures  for  its  success." 

Baker  paused,  and  every  eye  in  the  Senate,  and  in 
the  crowded  galleries,  was  fixed  upon  the  almost  solitary 
senator  from  Kentucky.  Fessenden  broke  the  painful 
silence,  by  exclaiming,  in  low  deep  tones,  which  gave 
expression  to  the  thrill  of  indignation  which  ran  through 
the  hall,  "  He  would  have  been  hurled  from  the  Tarpeian 
Rock." 

Congress  manifested  its  sense  of  the  gravity  of  the 
situation  by  authorizing  a  loan  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  'dollars,  and  enpowering  the  President  to  call 
into  the  field  five  hundred  thousand  men,  and  as  many 
more  as  he  might  deem  necessary. 

SURRENDER   OF    MASON    AND   SLIDELL. 

No  act  of  the  British  Government,  since  the  "  stamp 
act"  of  the  Revolution,  has  ever  excited  such  intense 
feeling  of  hostility  toward  Great  Britain,  as  her  haughty 
demand  for  the  surrender  of  Mason  and  Slidell.  It 
required  nerve,  in  the  President,  to  stem  the  storm  of 
popular  feeling  and  yield  to  that  demand,  and  it  was, 
for  a  time,  the  most  unpopular  act  of  his  administra- 


52  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tion.     But  when  the  excitement  of  the  day  had  passed, 
it  was  approved  by  the  sober  judgment  of  the  nation. 

Prince  Albert  is  kindly  and  gratefully  remembered  in 
America,  where  it  is  believed  that  his  action,  in  modify- 
ing the  terms  of  that  demand,  probably  saved  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  from  the  horrors  of  war. 

LINCOLN    AND   THE   ABOLITION   OF   SLAVERY. 

When  in  June,  1858,  at  his  home  in  Springfield, 
Mr.  Lincoln  startled  the  people  with  the  declaration, 
"  This  government  cannot  endure,  permanently,  half  slave 
and  half  free,"  and  when,  at  the  close  of  his  speech,  to  those 
who  were  laboring  for  the  ultimate  extinction  of  slavery, 
he  exclaimed,  with  the  voice  of  a  prophet,  "  We  shall 
not  fail,  if  we  stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise 
councils  may  accelerate,  or  mistakes  delay,  but  sooner 
or  later,  the  victory  is  sure  to  come ;"  he  anticipated 
success,  through  years  of  discussion,  and  final  triumph 
through  peaceful  and  constitutional  means  by  the  ballot. 
He  did  not  foresee,  nor  even  dream  (unless  in  those 
dim  mysterious  shadows,  which  sometimes  startle  by 
half  revealing  the  future),  his  own  elevation  to  the 
presidency.  He  did  not  then  suspect  that  he  had  been 
appointed  by  God,  and  should  be  chosen  by  the  people, 
to  proclaim  the  emancipation  of  a  race,  and  to  save  his 
country.  He  did  not  foresee  that  slavery  was  so  soon 
to  be  destroyed,  amidst  the  flames  of  war  which  itself 
kindled. 

HIS   MODERATION. 

He  entered  upon  his  administration  with  the  single 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  53 

purpose  of  maintaining  national  unity,  and  many 
reproached  and  denounced  him  for  the  slowness  of  his 
anti-slavery  measures.  The  first  of  the  series  was  the  abo- 
lition of  slavery  at  the  National  Capitol.  This  act  gave 
freedom  to  three  thousand  slaves,  with  compensation  to 
their  loyal  masters.  Contemporaneous  with  this  was 
an  act  conferring  freedom  upon  all  colored  soldiers  who 
should  serve  in  the  Union  armies  and  upon  their 
families.  The  next  was  an  act  which  I  had  the  honor 
to  introduce,  prohibiting  slavery  in  all  the  territories, 
and  wherever  the  National  Government  had  jurisdiction. 
But  the  great,  the  decisive  act  of  his  administration, 
was  the  "  Emancipation  Proclamation." 

EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION. 

The  President  had  urged,  with  the  utmost  earnest- 
ness, on  the  loyal  slave-holders  of  the  Border  States, 
gradual  and  compensated  emancipation,  but  in  vain.  He 
clearly  saw,  all  saw,  that  the  slaves,  as  used  by  the  Con- 
federates, were  a  vast  power,  contributing  immensely 
to  their  ability  to  carry  on  the  war,  and  that,  by  declar- 
ing their  freedom,  he  would  convert  millions  of  freedmen 
into  active  friends  and  allies  of  the  Union.  The  people 
knew  that  he  was  deliberating  upon  the  question  of  issu- 
Union  men  of  the  Border  States  made  an  appeal  to  him 
to  withhold  the  edict,  and  suffer  slavery  to  survive. 

They  selected  John  J.  Crittenden,  a  venerable  and 
eloquent  man,  and  their  ablest  statesman,  to  make,  on  the 
floor  of  Congress,  a  public  appeal  to  the  President,  to 
withhold  the  proclamation.  Mr.  Crittenden  had  been 


54  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

governor  of  Kentucky,  her  senator  in  Congress,  attor- 
ney-general of  the  United  States,  and  now,  in  his  old 
age,  covered  with  honors,  he  accepted,  like  John  Quincy 
Adams,  a  seat  in  Congress,  that  in  this  crisis  he  might 
help  to  save  his  country. 

He  was  a  sincere  Union  man,  but  believed  it  unwise 
to  disturb  slavery.  In  his  speech  he  made  a  most 
eloquent  and  touching  appeal,  from  a  Kentuckian  to  a 
Kentuckian.  He  said,  among  other  things,  "  There  is  a 
niche,  near  to  that  of  Washington,  to  him  who  shall  save 
his  country.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  will  step  into  that  niche, 
the  founder  and  the  preserver  of  the  Republic  shall  stand 
side  by  side."  Owen  Lovejoy,  the  brother 

of  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy,  who  had  been  mobbed  and  mur- 
dered because  he  would  not  surrender  the  liberty  of  the 
press,  replied  to  Crittenden.  After  his  brother's  murder, 
kneeling  upon  the  green  sod  which  covered  that  brother's 
grave,  he  had  taken  a  solemn  vow,  of  eternal  war  upon 
slavery.  Ever  after,  like  Peter  the  Hermit,  with  a  heart 
of  fire  and  a  tongue  of  lightning,  he  had  gone  forth, 
preaching  his  crusade  against  slavery.  At  length,  in  his 
reply,  turning  to  Crittenden,  he  said,  "The  gentleman 
from  Kentucky  says  he  has  a  niche  for  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, where  is  it  ?  " 

Crittenden  pointed  toward  heaven. 

Lovejoy  continuing  said,  "  He  points  upward,  but,  sir  ! 
if  the  President  follows  the  counsel  of  that  gentleman, 
and  becomes  the  perpetuator  of  slavery,  he  should  point 
downward,  to  some  dungeon  in  the  temple  of  Moloch, 
who  feeds  on  human  blood,  and  where  are  forged  chains 
for  human  limbs ;  in  the  recesses  of  whose  temple  woman 


BY    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  55 

is  scourged  and  man  tortured,  and  outside  the  walls  are 
lying  dogs,  gorged  with  human  flesh,  as  Byron  describes 
them,  lying  around  the  walls  of  Stamboul."  "  That," 
said  Lovejoy,  "  is  a  suitable  place  for  the  statue  of  him 
who  would  perpetuate  slavery." 

"  I,  too,"  said  he,  ''have  a  temple  for  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, but  it  is  in  Freedom's  holy  fane, 
not  surrounded  by  slave  fetters  and  chains,  but  with  the 
symbols  of  freedom — not  dark  with  bondage,  but  radiant 
with  the  light  of  Liberty.  In  that  niche  he  shall  stand 
proudly,  nobly,  gloriously,  with  broken  chains  and  slave's 
whips  beneath  his  feet.  That  is  a  fame 

worth  living  for,  aye,  more,  it  is  a  fame  worth  dying  for, 
though  that  death  led  through  Gethsemane  and  the 
agony  of  the  accursed  tree." 

"  It  is  said,"  continued  he,  "that  Wilberforce  went  up 
to  the  judgment-seat  with  the  broken  chains  of  eight 
hundred  thousand  slaves !  Let  Lincoln  make  himself 
the  Liberator,  and  his  name  shall  be  enrolled,  not  only 
in  this  earthly  temple,  but  it  shall  be  traced  on  the  living 
stones  of  that  temple  which  is  reared  amid  the  thrones 
of  Heaven." 

Lovejoy's  prophecy  has  been  fulfilled — in  this  world — 
you  see  the  statues  to  Lincoln,  with  broken  chains  at  his 
feet,  rising  all  over  the  world,  and — in  that  other  world — 
few  will  doubt  that  the  prophecy  has  been  realized. 

In  September,  1862,  after  the  Confederates,  by  their 
defeat  at  the  great  battle  of  Antietam,  had  been  driven 
back  from  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  Lincoln  issued 
the  Proclamation.  It  is  a  fact,  illustrating  his  character, 
and  showing  that  there  was  in  him  what  many  would  call 


56  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

a  tinge  of  superstition,  that  he  declared,  to  Secretary 
Chase,  that  he  had  made  a  solemn  vow  to  God,  saying, 
"  if  General  Lee  is  driven  back  from  Pennsylvania,  I 
will  crown  the  result  with  the  declaration  of  FREEDOM 
TO  THE  SLAVE."  The  final  Proclamation  was  issued  on 
the  first  of  January,  1863.  In  obedience  to  American 
custom,  he  had  been  receiving  calls  on  that  New  Year's 
day,  and,  for  hours,  shaking  hands.  As  the  paper  was 
brought  to  him  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  to  be  signed,  he 
said,  "  Mr.  Seward,  I  have  been  shaking  hands  all  day, 
and  my  right  hand  is  almost  paralyzed.  If  my  .name 
ever  gets  into  history,  it  will  be  for  this  act,  and  my  whole 
soul  is  in  it.  If  my  hand  trembles  when  I  sign  the  proc- 
lamation, those  who  examine  the  document  hereafter, 
will  say,  '  he  hesitated.' " 

Then,  resting  his  arm  a  moment,  he  turned  to  the 
table,  took  up  the  pen,  and  slowly  and  firmly  wrote 
Abraham  Lincoln.  He  smiled  as,  handing  the  paper  to 
Mr.  Seward,  he  said,  "  that  will  do." 

From  this  day,  to  its  final  triumph,  the  tide  of  victory 
seemed  to  set  more  and  more  in  favor  of  the  Union 
cause.  The  capture  of  Vicksburg,  the  victory  of  Gettys- 
burg, Chattanooga,  Chickamauga,  Lookout-Mountain, 
Missionary  Ridge,  Sheridan's  brilliant  campaign  in  the  Val- 
ley of  the  Shenandoah ;  Thomas's  decisive  victory  at 
Nashville  ;  Sherman's  march,  through  the  Confederacy,  to 
the  sea  ;  the  capture  of  Fort  McAllister ;  the  sinking  of 
the  Alabama;  the  taking  of  Mobile  by  Farragut ;  the 
occupation  of  Columbus,  Charlestown,  Savannah ;  the 
evacuation  of  Petersburg  and  Richmond  ;  the  surrender 
of  Lee  to  Grant ;  the  taking  of  Jefferson  Davis  a 


BY    iSAAC    AT.     ARNOLD.  57 

prisoner ;  the  triumph  everywhere  of  the  national  arms  ; 
such  were  the  events  which  followed  (though  with  delays 
and  bloodshed)  the  "Proclamation  of  Emancipation." 

THE   AMENDMENT   TO   THE   CONSTITUTION. 

Meanwhile  Lincoln  had  been  triumphantly  re-elected ; 
Congress  had,  as  before  stated,  abolished  slavery  at  the 
Capital,  prohibited  it  in  all  the  territories,  declared  all 
negro  soldiers  in  the  Union  armies,  and  their  families, 
free,  and  had  repealed  all  laws  which  sanctioned  or  recog- 
nized slavery,  and  the  President  had  crowned  and  con- 
summated all,  by  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation. 
One  thing  alone  remained  to  perfect,  confirm,  and  make 
everlastingly  permanent  these  measures,  and  this  was  to 
embody  in  the  Constitution  itself,  the  prohibition  of  slav- 
ery everywhere  within  the  republic. 

To  change  the  organic  law  required  the  adoption  by 
a  two-thirds  vote  of  a  joint  resolution,  by  Congress,  and 
that  this  should  be  submitted  to,  and  ratified  by,  two- 
thirds  of  the  States. 

The  President,  in  his  annual  message  and  in  personal 
interviews  with  members  of  Congress,  urged  the  passage 
of  such  resolution.  To  test  the  strength  of  the  measure, 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  I  had  the  honor,  in 
February,  1864,  to  introduce  the  following  resolution  : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Constitution  should  be  so 
amended  as  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  United  States 
wherever  it  now  exists,  and  to  prohibit  its  existence  in 
every  part  thereof  forever  "  (Cong.  Globe,  vol.  50,  p.  659). 
This  was  adopted  by  a  decided  vote,  and  was  the  first 


58  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

resolution  ever  passed  by  Congress  in  favor  of  the  entire 
abolition  of  slavery.  But,  although  it  received  a  majority, 
it  did  not  receive  a  majority  of  two-thirds. 

The  debates  on  the  Constitutional  Amendment 
(perhaps  the  greatest  in  our  congressional  history,  cer- 
tainly the  most  important  since  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution) ran  through  two  sessions  of  Congress.  Charles 
Sumner,  the  learned  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  brought 
to  the  discussion,  in  the  Senate,  his  ample  stores  of  his- 
torical illustration,  quoting  largely  in  its  favor  from  the 
historians,  poets,  and  statesmen  of  the  past. 

The  resolution  was  adopted  in  the  Senate  by  the 
large  vote  of  ayes,  38,  noes,  6. 

In  the  lower  house,  at  the  first  session,  it  failed  to 
obtain  a  two-thirds'  vote,  and,  on  a  motion  to  reconsider, 
went  over  to  the  next  session. 

Mr.  Lincoln  again  earnestly  urged  its  adoption,  and, 
in  a  letter  to  Illinois  friends,  he  said,  "  The  signs  look 
better.  Peace  does  not  look  so  distant  as 

it  did.  I  hope  it  will  come  soon,  and  come  to  stay,  and 
so  come  as  to  be  worth  keeping  in  all  future  time." 

I  recall,  very  vividly,  my  New  Year's  call  upon  the 
President,  January,  1864.  I  said  : 

"  I  hope,  Mr.  President,  one  year  from  to-day  I  may 
have  the  pleasure  of  congratulating  you  on  the  occurrence 
of  three  events  which  now  seem  probable." 

"What  are  they?"  inquired  he. 

"  i.  That  the  rebellion  may  be  entirely  crushed. 

"2.  That  the  Constitutional  Amendment,  abolishing 
and  prohibiting  slavery,  may  have  been  adopted 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  59 

"3.  And  that  Abraham  Lincoln  may  have  been 
re-elected  President." 

"  I  think,"  replied  he,  with  a  smile,  "  I  would  be  glad 
to  accept  the  first  two  as  a  compromise." 

General  Grant,  in  a  letter,  remarkable  for  that  clear 
good-sense  and  practical  judgment  for  which  he  is  distin- 
guished, condensed  into  a  single  sentence  the  political 
argument  in  favor  of  the  Constitutional  Amendment. 
"The  North  and  South,"  said  he,  "can  never  live  at 
peace  with  each  other  except  as  one  nation  and  that  with- 
out slavery" 

GARFIELD'S  SPEECH. 

I  would  be  glad  to  quote  from  this  great  debate,  but 
must  confine  myself  to  a  brief  extract  from  the  speech  of 
the  present  President,  then  a  member  of  the  House. 
He  began  by  saying,  "  Mr.  Speaker,  we  shall  never  know 
why  slavery  dies  so  hard  in  this  republic,  and  in  this 
hall,  until  we  know  why  sin  outlives  disaster  and  Satan 
is  immortal."  "  How  well  do  I  remember," 

he  continued,  "the  history  of  that  distinguished  pre- 
decessor of  mine,  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  lately  gone  to  his 
rest,  who,  with  his  forlorn  hope  of  faithful  men,  took  his 
life  in  his  hands,  and,  in  the  name  of  justice,  protested 
against  the  great  crime,  and  who  stood  bravely  in  his 
place  until  his  white  locks,  like  the  plume  of  Henry  of 
Navarre,  marked  where  the  battle  of  freedom  raged 
fiercest."  "In  its  mad  arrogance,  slavery 

'lifted  its  hand  against  the  Union,  and  since  that  fatal  day 
it  has  been  a  fugitive  and  a  vagabond  upon  the  earth." 

Up  to  the  last  roll-call,  on  the  question  of  the  passage 


60  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

% 

cf  the  resolution,  we  were  uncertain  and  anxio  is  about 
the  result.  We  needed  Democratic  votes.  We  knew 
we  should  get  some,  but  whether  enough  to  carry  the 
measure  none  could  surely  tell. 

As  the  Clerk  called  the  names  of  members,  so  perfect 
was  the  silence,  that  the  sound  of  a  hundred  pencils  keep- 
ing tally  could  be  heard  through  the  Hall. 

Finally,  when  the  call  was  completed,  and  the  Speaker 
announced  that  the  resolution  was  adopted,  the  result 
was  received  by  an  uncontrollable  burst  of  enthusiasm. 
Members  and  spectators  (especially  the  galleries,  which 
were  crowded  with  convalescent  soldiers)  shouted  and 
cheered,  and,  before  the  Speaker  could  obtain  quiet,  the 
roar  of  artillery  on  Capitol  Hill  proclaimed  to  the  city  of 
Washington,  the  passage  of  the  resolution.  Congress 
adjourned,  and  we  hastened  to  the  White  House  to  con- 
gratulate the  President  on  the  event. 

He  made  one  of  his  happiest  speeches.  In  his  own 
peculiar  words,  he  said,  "  The  great  job  is  finished"  "  I 
can  not  but  congratulate,"  said  he,  "  all  present,  myself, 
the  country,  and  the  whole  world,  on  this  great  moral 
victory." 

PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.           » 

And  now,  with  an  attempt  to  sketch  very  briefly  some 
of  his  peculiar  personal  characteristics,  I  must  close. 

This  great  Hercules  of  a  man  had  a  heart  as  kind 
and  tender  as  a  woman.  Sterner  men  thought  it  a 
weakness.  It  saddened  him  to  see  others  suffer,  and  he 
shrunk  from  inflicting  pain.  Let  me  illustrate  his  kind- 
ness and  tenderness  by  one  or  two  incidents.  One  sum- 


BY    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  61 

mer's  day,  walking  along  the  shaded  path  leading  from 
the  Executive  mansion  to  the  War-office,  I  saw  the  tall, 
awkward  form  of  the  President  seated  on  the  grass  under 
a  tree.  A  wounded  soldier,  seeking  back-pay  and  a  pen- 
sion, had  met  the  President,  and,  having  recognized  him, 
asked  his  counsel.  Lincoln  sat  down,  examined  the 
papers  of  the  soldier,  and  told  him  what  to  do,  sent  him 
to  the  proper  bureau  with  a  note,  which  secured  prompt 
attention. 

After  the  terribly  destructive  battles  between  Grant 
and  Lee,  in  the  Wilderness  of  Virginia,  after  days  of 
dreadful  slaughter,  the  lines  of  ambulances,  conveying 
the  wounded  from  the  steamers  on  the  Potomac  to  the 
great  field  hospitals  on  the  heights  around  Washington, 
would  be  continuous, — one  unbroken  line  from  the  wharf 
to  the  hospital.  At  such  a  time,  I  have  seen  the  Pres- 
ident in  his  carriage,  driving  slowly  along  the  line,  and  he 
looked  like  one  who  had  lost  the  dearest  members  of  his 
own  family.  On  one  such  occasion,  meeting  me,  he 
stopped  and  said,  "  I  cannot  bear  this ;  this  suffering, 
this  loss  of  life — is  dreadful." 

I  recalled  to  him  a  line  from  a  letter  he  had  years 
before  written  to  a  friend,  whose  great  sorrow  he  had 
sought  to  console.  Reminding  him  of  the  incident,  I 
asked  him,  "  So  you  remember  writing  to  your  suffering 
friend  these  words  : 

"  And  this  too  s  kail  pass  away, 
Never  fear.      Victory  will  come" 

In  all  his  State  papers  and  speeches  during  these 
years  of  strife  and  passion,  there  can  be  found  no  words 


62  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

of  bitterness,  no  denunciation.  When  others  railed,  he 
railed  not  again.  He  was  always  dignified,  magnanimous, 
patient,  considerate,  manly,  and  true.  His  duty  was 
ever  performed  "  with  malice  toward  none,  with  charity 
for  all,"  and  with  "  firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us 
to  see  the  right." 

NEVER   A    DEMAGOGUE. 

Lincoln  was  never  a  demagogue.  He  respected  and 
loved  the  people,  but  never  flattered  them.  No  man 
ever  heard  him  allude  to  his  humble  life  and  manual 
labor,  in  a  way  to  obtain  votes.  None  knew  better  than 
he,  that  splitting  rails  did  not  qualify  a  man  for  public 
duties.  He  realized  painfully  the  defects  of  his  educa- 
tion, and  labored  diligently  and  successfully  to  supply 
his  deficiencies. 

HIS   CONVERSATION. 

lie  had  no  equal  as  a  talker  in  social  life.  His  con- 
versation was  fascinating  and  attractive.  He  was  full  of 
wit,  humor,  and  anecdote,  and  at  the  same  time,  original, 
suggestive,  and  instructive.  There  was  in  his  character 
a  singular  mingling  of  mirthfulness  and  melancholy. 
While  his  sense  of  the  ludicrous  was  keen,  and  his  fun 
and  mirth  were  exuberant,  and  sometimes  almost  irre- 
pressible, his  conversation  sparkling  with  jest,  story,  and 
anecdote,  and  in  droll  description,  he  would  pass  sud- 
denly to  another  mood,  and  become  sad  and  pathetic ; 
a  melancholy  expression  of  his  homely  face  would  show 
that  he  was  "a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with 
grief." 


BY    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  63 

HIS   STORIES. 

The  newspapers  in  America  have  always  been  full 
of  Lincoln's  stories  and  anecdotes,  some  true  and  many 
fabulous. 

He  always  had  a  story  ready,  and,  if  not,  he  could 
improvise  one,  just  fitted  for  the  occasion.  The  follow- 
ing may,  I  think,  be  said  to  have  been  adapted: 

An  Atlantic  port,  in  one  of  the  British  provinces, 
was,  during  the  war,  a  great  resort  and  refuge  for 
blockade-runners,  and  a  large  contraband  trade  was  said 
to  have  been  carried  on  from  that  port  with  the  Con- 
federates. Late  in  the  summer  of  1864,  while  the 
election  of  President  was  pending,  Lincoln  being  a  can- 
didate, the  Governor-General  of  that  province,  with  some 
of  the  principal  officers,  visited  Washington,  and  called 
to  pay  their  respects  to  the  Executive.  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
been  very  much  annoyed  by  the  failure  of  these  officials 
to  enforce  very  strictly  the  rules  of  neutrality,  but  he 
treated  his  guests  with  great  courtesy.  After  a  pleasant 
interview,  the  Governor,  alluding  to  the  approaching 
presidential  election,  said,  jokingly,  but  with  a  grain  of 
sarcasm,  "  I  understand,  Mr.  President,  everybody  votes 
in  this  country.  If  we  remain  until  November,  can  we 
vote?" 

"  You  remind  me,"  replied  the  President,  "of  a  coun- 
tryman of  yours,  a  green  emigrant  from  Ireland.  Pat 
arrived  in  New  York  on  election  day,  and  was,  perhaps, 
as  eager  as  Your  Excellency,  to  vote,  and  to  vote  early 
and  late  and  often.  So,  upon  his  landing  at  Castle  Gar- 
den, he  hastened  to  the  nearest  voting  place,  and,  as  he 


64  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

approached,  the  judge  who  received  the  ballots  inquired, 
'  Who  do  you  want  to  vote  for  ?  on  which  side  are  you  ?' 
Poor  Pat  was  embarrassed ;  he  did  not  know  who  were 
the  candidates.  He  stopped,  scratched  his  head,  then, 
with  the  readiness  of  his  countrymen,  he  said : 

"  '  I  am  foment  the  Government,  anyhow.  Tell  me, 
if  your  honor  plases,  which  is  the  rebellion  side,  and 
I'll  tell  you  how  I  want  to  vote.  In  Ould  Ireland,  I  was 
always  on  the  rebellion  side,  and,  by  Saint  Patrick,  I'll 
stick  to  that  same  in  America.' 

"Your  Excellency,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "would,  I 
should  think,  not  beat  all  at  a  loss  on  which  side  to  vote." 

THE  BOOKS    HE    READ. 

The  two  books  he  read  most  were  the  Bible  and 
Shakespeare.  With  them  he  was  familiar,  reading  and 
quoting  from  them  constantly.  Next  to  Shakespeare, 
among  the  poets,  was  Burns,  with  whom  he  had  a  hearty 
sympathy,  and  upon  whose  poetry  he  wrote  a  lecture. 
He  was  extremely  fond  of  ballads,  and  of  simple,  sad  and 
plaintive  music. 

I  called  one  day  at  the  White  House,  to  introduce 
two  officers  of  the  Union  army,  both  Swedes.  Immedi- 
ately he  began  and  repeated  from  memory,  to  the  delight 
of  his  visitors,  a  long  ballad,  descriptive  of  Norwegian 
scenery,  a  Norse  legend,  and  the  adventures  of  an  old 
Viking  among  the  fiords  of  the  North. 

He  said  he  had  read  the  poem  in  a  newspaper,  and 
the  visit  of  these  Swedes  recalled  it  to  his  memory. 

On  the  last  Sunday  of  his  life,  as  he  was  sailing  up 


J3Y    ISAAC    N.     ARNOLD.  65 

the  Potomac,  returning  to  Washington  from  his  visit  to 
Richmond,  he  read  aloud  many  extracts  from  Mac- 
beth, and,  among  others,  the  following,  and  with  a  tone 
and  accent  so  impressive  that,  after  his  death,  it  was 
vividly  recalled  by  those  who  heard  him : 

"  Duncan  is  in  his  grave  ; 
After  life's  fitful  fever,  he  sleeps  well  ; 
Treason  has  done  his  Tyorst :  nor  steel,  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing, 
Can  touch  him  further  !" 

After  his  assassination,  those  friends  could  not  fail  to 
recall  this  passage  from  the  same  play : 

"  This  Duncan 

Hath  borne  his  faculties  so  meek,  hath  been 
So  clear  in  his  great  office,  that  his  virtues 
Will  plead  like  angels,  trumpet-tongued,  against 
The  deep  damnation  of  his  taking-off." 

HIS    RELIGION. 

It  is  strange  that  any  reader  of  Lincoln's  speeches 
and  writings  should  have  had  the  hardihood  to  charge 
him  with  infidelity,  but  the  charge,  having  been  repeat- 
edly made,  I  reply,  in  the  light  of  facts  accessible  to  all, 
that  no  more  reverent  Christian  (not  excepting  Washing- 
ton) ever  filled  the  chair  of  President.  Declarations  of 
his  trust  in  God,  his  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  per- 
vade his  speeches  and  writings.  From  the  time  he  left 
Springfield,  to  his  death,  he  not  only  himself  continuedly 
prayedfor  Divine  assistance,  but  never  failed  to  ask  the 
prayers  of  others  for  himself  and  his  country. 

His  reply  to  the  negroes  of  Baltimore,  who,  in  1864, 
s 


66  ABA  AH  AM    LINCOLN. 

presented  him  with  a  beautiful  Bible,  as  an  expression  of 
their  love  and  gratitude,  ought  to  have  silenced  all  who 
have  made  such  charges.  After  thanking  them,  he  said, 
"  This  great  book  is  the  best  gift  God  has  given  to  man. 
All  the  good  from  the  Saviour  of  the  world  is  communi- 
cated through  this  book." 

When  a  member  of  Congress,  knowing  his  religious 
character,  asked  him  "  Why  he  did  not  join  some  church  ?" 
Mr.  Lincoln  replied,  "  Because  I  found  difficulty,  with- 
out mental  reservation,  in  giving  my  assent  to  their  long 
and  complicated  confessions  of  faith.  When  any  church 
will  inscribe  over  its  altar  the  Saviour's  condensed  state- 
ment of  law  and  gospel,  '  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart,  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,'  that  church  will  I  join 
with  all  my  heart." 

WHAT    HE   ACCOMPLISHED. 

Let  us  try  to  sum  up  in  part  what  he  accomplished. 

When  he  assumed    the   duties  of   the  Executive,  he 

• 

found  an  empty  treasury,  the  National  credit  gone,  the 
little  nucleus  of  an  army  and  navy  scattered  and  dis- 
armed, the  officers,  who  had  not  deserted  to  the  rebels, 
strangers  ;  the  party  which  elected  him  in  a  minority  (he 
having  been  elected  only  because  his  opponents  were 
divided  between  Douglas,  Breckenridge,  ai:d  Everett), 
the  old  Democratic  party,  which  had  ruled  most  of  the 
time  for  half  a  century,  hostile,  and  even  that  part  of  it  in 
the  North,  from  long  association,  in  sympathy  with  the 
insurgents;  his  own  party  made  up  of  discordant  ele- 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  67 

ments,  and  neither  he  nor  his  party  had  acquired  prestige 
and  the  confidence  of  the  people. 

It  is  the  exact  truth  to  say  that  when  he  entered  the 
White  House  he  was  the  object  of  personal  prejudice  to  a 
majority  of  the  American  people,  and  of  contempt  to  a 
powerful  minority.  He  entered  upon  his  task  of  restor- 
ing the  integrity  of  a  broken  Union,  without  sympathy 
from  any  of  the  great  powers  of  Western  Europe.  Those 
which  were  not  hostile  manifested  a  cold  neutrality,  exhib- 
iting toward  him  and  his  government  no  cordial  good-will, 
nor  extending  any  moral  aid.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all,  he 
crushed  the  most  stupendous  rebellion,  supported  by 
armies  more  vast,  by  resources  greater,  and  an  organiza- 
tion more  perfect,  than  ever  before  undertook  the  dis- 
memberment of  a  nation.  He  united  and  held  together, 
against  contending  factions,  his  own  party,  and  strength- 
ened it  by  securing  the  confidence  and  winning  the  sup- 
port of  the  best  part  of  all  parties.  He  composed  the 
quarrels  of  rival  generals  ;  and,  at  length,  won  the  respect 
and  confidence  and  sympathy  of  all  nations  and  peoples. 
He  was  re-elected,  almost  by  acclamation,  and,  after  a 
series  of  brilliant  victories,  he  annihilated  all  armed 
opposition.  He  led  the  people,  step  by  step,  to  Emanci- 
pation, and  saw  his  work  crowned  by  an  amendment  of 
the  Constitution,  eradicating  and  prohibiting  slavery  for- 
ever, throughout  the  republic. 

Such  is  a  brief  and  imperfect  summary  of  his  achieve- 
ments during  the  last  five  years  of  his  life.  And  this 
good  man,  when  the  hour  of  victory  came,  made  it  not  the 
hour  of  vengeance,  but  of  forgiveness  and  reconciliation. 
These  five  years  of  incessant  labor  and  fearful  responsi- 


68  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

bility  told  even  upon  his  strength  and  vigor.  He  left 
Illinois,  for  the  Capital,  with  a  frame  of  iron  and  nerves 
of  steel.  His  old  friends,  who  had  known  him  as  a  man 
who  did  not  know  what  illness  was  ;  who  had  seen  him 
on  the  prairies  before  the  Illinois  courts,  full  of  life,  ge- 
nial, and  sparkling  with  fun  ;  now  saw  the  wrinkles  on  his 
forehead  deepened  into  furrows — the  laugh  of  the  old  days 
lost  its  heartiness  ;  anxiety,  responsibility,  care,  and  hard 
work  wore  upon  him,  and  his  nerves  of  steel  at  times 
became  irritable.  He  had  had  no  respite,  had  taken  no 
holidays.  When  others  fled  away  from  the  dust  and  heat 
of  the  Capital,  he  stayed.  He  would  not  leave  the  helm 
until  all  danger  was  past,  and  the  good  ship  of  state  had 
made  her  port. 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  unutterable  sorrow  of  the 
American  people,  at  his  shocking  death.  But  I  desire  to 
express  here,  in  this  great  city  of  this  grand  empire,  the 
sensibility  with  which  the  people  of  the  United  States 
received,  at  his  death,  the  sympathy  of  the  English-speak- 
ing race. 

That  sympathy  was  most  eloquently  expressed  by  all. 
It  came  from  Windsor  Castle  to  the  White  House  ;  from 
England's  widowed  queen  to  the  stricken  and  distracted 
widow  at  Washington.  From  Parliament  to  Congress, 
from  the  people  of  all  this  magnificent  empire,  as  it 
stretches  round  the  world,  from  England  to  India,  from 
Canada  to  Australia,  came  words  of  deep  feeling,  and 
they  were  received  by  the  American  people,  in  their  sore 
bereavement,  as  the  expression  of  a  kindred  race. 

I  cannot  forbear  referring  in  particular  to  the  words 
spoken  in  Parliament  on  that  occasion,  by  Lords  Russell 


BY    ISAAC    N.    ARNOLD.  69 

and  Derby,  and,  especially,  by  that  great  and  picturesque 
leader,  so  lately  passed  away,  Lord  Beaconsfield.  After 
a  discriminating  eulogy  upon  the  late  President,  and  the 
expression  of  profound  sympathy,  he  said  : 

"  Nor  is  it  possible  for  the  people  of  England,  at  such 
a  moment,  to  forget  that  he  sprang  from  the  same  father- 
land and  spake  the  same  mother-tongue." 

God  grant  that,  in  all  the  unknown  future,  nothing 
may  ever  disturb  the  friendly  feeling  and  respect  which 
each  nation  entertains  for  the  other.  May  there  never  be 
another  quarrel  in  the  family. 


CHICAGO,  1882. 


70      NOTE  FROM  RIGHT  HON.   JOHN  BRIGHT. 


NOTE     FROM     THE      RIGHT     HON.     JOHN 

BRIGHT. 


No.  132  Piccadilly,  London, 

June  28 1 '/i,  '8 1. 
DEAR  SIR  : 

I  have  read  with  much  pleasure  your  interesting  paper 
on  President  Lincoln.  I  wish  all  men  could  read  it,  for 
the  life  of  your  great  President  affords  much  that  tends 
to  advance  all  that  is  good  and  noble  among  men.  I 
thank  you  for  sending  me  the  report  of  your  paper. 

I  am,  very  sincerely  yours, 

JOHN  BRCGHT 
Hon.  ISAAC  N.  ARNOLD. 


LETTER   FROM  MRS.   A.   C.   BOTTA.  71 


LETTER  FROM  MRS.  ANNE  C.  BOTTA. 


Buckingham  Palace  Hotel, 

June  22d,  1 88 1. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  ARNOLD  : 

An  hour  ago  I  opened  the  pamphlet  you  gave  me 
yesterday,  intending  to  glance  at  the  contents  and  lay  it 
aside  to  read  when  I  reached  home,  but  I  found  myself 
unable  to  lay  it  down  until  I  had  carefully  read  every 
word  from  first  to  last.  It  is  certainly  the  most  clear, 
exhaustive,  and  eloquent  tribute  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  I 
have  ever  seen.  But  the  pleasure  it  has  given  me  is  quite 
equaled  by  the  pride  I  feel  in  knowing  that  it  was 
listened  to  by  the  London  Historical  Society,  to  whom  it 
must  have  been  as  novel  as  interesting.  As  a  good 
American,  I  thank  you  cordially  for  thus  giving  to  the 
English  people  so  noble  a  picture  of  our  great  President, 
while,  at  the  same  time,  you  presented  to  them  in  person 
his  able  friend  and  coadjutor. 

Very  truly  yours, 

ANNE  C.  BOTTA. 


72  TITO    PAGLIARDIRRrS    ADDRESS. 


ADDRESS   OF   TITO    PAGLIARDIRRI,  ESQ., 

COUNCIL  OF  THE  ROYAL  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  LONDON, 

ENGLAND. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  LADIES,  and  GENTLEMEN  : — Seldom 
have  I  listened  to  a  paper  that  has  so  deeply  interested 
me.  It  has  given  us  a  living  portrait  of  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  individualities  of  recent  times — a  portrait,  too, 
traced  by  the  hand  of  one  who,  having  himself  taken  a 
prominent  part  in  the  great  national  struggle  which  put 
an  end  to  slavery,  had  constant  opportunities  of  seeing 
and  studying  in  every  phase  of  his  life  the  eminent  man 
he  has  so  graphically  portrayed.  And  though  it  has  been 
said  that  familiarity  breeds  contempt,  and  that  there  is 
no  hero  for  his  valet,  yet  men  of  the  Garibaldi  and  Lin- 
coln type,  whose  influence  on  their  country  and  mankind 
at  large  is  chiefly  due  to  moral  force,  can  only  gain  by  a 
closer  view  of  them  in  their  prosaic  every-day  life. 
When  we  see  the  gentler  feelings  of  the  human  heart 
combined  in  a  prominent  man  with  a  rigid  sense  of  duty 
and  the  intellectual  power  and  perseverance  necessary  to 
fulfill  that  duty,  we  not  only  admire  that  man  but  revere 
and  love  him.  Hence  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  preserver, 
as  Washington  was  the  founder  of  the  great  Union, 
always,  I  must  confess,  stood  higher  in  my  estimation 
and  love  than  all  the  Alexanders,  Csesars,  and  Napoleons 


TITO    PAGLIARDIRRI'S   ADDRESS.  73 

who  have  reddened  the  pages  of  history  with  their  bril- 
liant exploits. 

Before  his  time,  I  was  often  taunted  by  my  French 
republican  friends  for  showing  but  scant  enthusiasm  for 
"  La  grande  Republique  Americaine."  In  answer,  I 
pointed  to  the  huge  black  spot  which,  though  it  only 
covered  half,  yet  extended  its  moral  taint  to  the  whole  of 
the  otherwise  glorious  Union.  That  could  not  be  the 
model  land  of  Liberty  where  millions  of  our  fellow-creat- 
ures were  born  to  slavery,  to  be  bought  and  sold  like 
swine. 

But  when  the  great  deliverer  arose,  humble  though 
his  origin,  as  is  that  of  most  deliverers,  my  sentiments 
towards  America  changed.  I  hailed  him  with  enthusiasm 
and  stood  almost  alone  in  my  circle,  composed  chiefly  of 
readers  of  the  conservative  and  semi-conservative  press ; 
for,  to  their  shame  and  ultimate  discomfiture,  the  leading 
papers  almost  all  took  the  wrong  side,  prophesying  con- 
tinuous disasters  to  the  anti-slavery  party  and  a  consequent 
disruption  of  the  Union.  Their  grand  but  specious  ar- 
gument, which  misled  many  honest  minds,  ignorant  of 
the  history  of  the  several  States,  was  that  the  South  had 
as  much  right  to  fight  for  their  liberty  as  the  United 
States  themselves  had  to  fight  for  their  independence 
against  England.  Liberty,  indeed!  The  liberty  to  per- 
petuate the  curse  of  slavery ! 

But  Americans  must  not  judge  of  British  sentiments 
by  the  conservative  press,  which  only  represents  a  portion 
of  the  public,  but  which,  unfortunately,  was  that  which 
most  easily  found  its  way  across  the  Atlantic.  The  real 
heart  of  Great  Britain  was  from  the  beginning  with  the 


74  TITO    PAGLIARDIRRI'S   ADDRESS. 

North.  Indeed.  Lincoln's  warmest  sympathizers  were 
those  who  suffered  most  from  the  direful  American  civil 
contest — the  cotton-spinners  and  the  whole  body  of  the 
working  classes.  And  as  nothing  succeeds  like  success,  I 
am  bound  to  add  that  in  the  process  of  time  the  undaunted 
determination  of  the  Northern  States,  under  a  series  of 
alarming  defeats,  with  their  best-trained  generals  and  offi- 
cers, and  their  chief  arsenals,  on  the  side  of  the  slave- 
holders, gradually  gained  for  them  and  for  their  great 
inspirer,  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  respect  and  admiration  of 
all  parties — and  this  admiration  and  this  respect  were 
vastly  increased  when,  in  the  hour  of  victory,  all  cries  for 
vengeance  were  hushed,  and  the  hand  of  brotherhood 
was  held  out  to  the  defeated  party  by  the  noble-hearted 
President,  with  the  full  consent  of  his  victorious  country- 
men. 

And  now  that  what  was  deemed  impossible  is  an  ac- 
complished fact,  viz. :  the  abomination  of  slavery  erad- 
icated forever  from  the  great  American  Republic,  and 
peace  and  prosperity  restored  throughout  the  land,  I 
trust  that,  in  Mr.  Arnold's  own  words,  "nothing  may 
ever  disturb  the  friendly  feeling  and  respect  which  each 
of  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  nations  entertains  for  the 
other." 

Already  have  they  given  a  striking  proof  of  their 
advanced  civilization  and  friendly  feelings,  and  a  noble 
example  to  all  other  civilized  nations,  in  the  peaceful  set- 
tlement of  the  burning  Alabama  question,  which,  but  one 
generation  ago  would  most  certainly  have  led  to  an  obsti- 
nate war,  ruinous  to  both  countries.  That  the  decision 
of  the  neutral  body  of  arbitrators  was  impartial  and  toler- 


TITO    PAGLIARDIRRI'S   ADDRESS.  75 

ably  just  was  proved  by  its  giving  at  the  time  entire  satis- 
faction to  neither  party,  the  whole  question  being,  how- 
ever, soon  after  completely  dropped,  leaving  no  angry  feel- 
ings behind,  as  would  have  done  a  war,  however  success- 
ful in  the  end.  May  God  grant  that  any  future  differ- 
ences between  these  two  great  nations  having  a  common 
origin,  a  common  language,  a  common  literature,  and  so 
many  institutions  in  common,  be  settled  in  the  same  just 
friendly,  and  rational  manner.  No  fratricidal  war  must 
or  can  ever  arise  between  them.  All  their  future  battles 
must  be  fought  on  the  peaceful  fields  of  science,  literature, 
and  the  industrial  arts.  Victories  on  these  fields  will 
benefit  both,  and  the  whole  human  race  into  the  bargain. 

I  will  now  conclude  these  hasty  remarks  by  proposing 
a  hearty  vote  of  thanks  to  the  Hon.  Isaac  N.  Arnold  for 
his  very  valuable  and  interesting  paper. 

Which  was  unanimously  adopted. 


FIRST    POLITICAL    ADDRESS. 


LINCOLN'S  FIRST  POLITICAL  SPEECH 

WHEN  A  CANDIDATE  FOR  THE  ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE 

IN  1832. 

"  GENTLEMEN,  FELLOW-CITIZENS  :  I  presume  you  know 
who  I  am.  I  am  humble  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  have  been 
solicited  by  many  friends  to  become  a  candidate  for  the 
Legislature.  My  politics  can  be  briefly  stated.  I  am  in 
favor  of  the  internal  improvement  system,  and  a  high 
protective  tariff.  These  are  my  sentiments  and  political 
principles.  If  elected,  I  shall  be  thankful ;  if  not,  it  will 
be  all  the  same." 


3  *•§ 

•««      Is  §| 

SI    ¥J 


£.     ANDERSON. 


77 


THE  ripest  and  fairest  fruit  that  has  yet  'fallen  from 
our  American  tree  of  civilization  is  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. His  private  character  was  stainless,  his  public  life 
pure,  wise,  courageous,  statesmanlike.  In  both,  he  will 
shine  the  brighter  as  years  and  centuries  roll  on.  Among 
the  many  orbs  that  illuminate  the  pages  of  our  history, 
he  is  the  sun  himself,  whose  light  was  not  darkened  by 
the  most  cloudy  and  stormy  days  of  our  civil  war.  When 
he  had  saved  our  country,  and  wiped  out  the  black  stain 
that  marred  the  beauty  of  so  many  of  our  fair  states, 
envy  could  find  no  more  shining  mark  for  its  poisoned 
shafts,  and  like  the  good  Balder  in  our  ancient  mythology, 
and  like  Christ  and  Socrates  of  old,  he  was  made  to 
die,  that  truth  and  righteousness  might  live.  I  can  name 
no  name  of  any  age  or  country  that  in  private  and  public 
life  outshines  that  of  the  great  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  His 
memory  will  be  cherished  by  the  latest  generations  of 
this  eartn. 


MADISON,  1880. 


78  EXTRACT    FROM    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT    FROM    A    SPEECH    DELIVERED 
DECEMBER,    1839. 

Of  the  slave  power  he  said,  Broken  by  it  ?  I,  too,  may 
be  asked  to  bow  to  it,  I  never  will !  The  probability  that 
we  may  fail  in  the  struggle  ought  not  to  deter  us  from 
the  support  of  a  cause  which  I  deem  to  be  just.  It  shall 
not  deter  me.  If  I  ever  feel  the  soul  within  me  elevate 
and  expand  to  dimensions  not  wholly  unworthy  of  its 
almighty  Architect,  it  is  when  I  contemplate  the  cause  of 
my  country,  deserted  by  all  the  world  beside,  and  I  stand- 
ing up  boldly  and  alone,  and  hurling  defiance  at  her  vic- 
torious oppressors.  Here,  without  contemplating  conse- 
quences, before  high  Heaven,  and  in  the  face  of  the  world, 
I  swear  eternal  fidelity  to  the  just  cause,  as  I  deem  it,  of 
the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  love  !  » 

And  who  that  thinks  with  me,  will  not  adopt  the  oath 
that  I  take  ?  Let  none  falter  who  thinks  he  is  fight,  and 
we  may  succeed.  But  if,  after  all,  we  shall  fall,  be  it  so. 
We  shall  have  the  proud  consolation  of  saying  to  our 
conscience,  and  to  the  departed  shade  of  our  country's 
freedom,  that  the  course  approved  by  our  judgments  and 
adored  by  our  hearts,  in  disaster,  in  chains,  in  torture,  and 
in  death,  We  never  faltered  in  defending. 


R.     S.    AY  RES. 


79 


A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  a  man  of  noble  charao 
lY  ter, — of  lofty  aims.  He  brought  to  the  duties  of 
the  presidential  office  the  highest  qualities  of  manhood, 
a  wide  knowledge  of  humanity,  and  a  superb  courage  to 
carry  out  his  convictions.  It  was  a  most  fortunate  cir- 
cumstance that  he  was  our  President  during  those  mo- 
mentous years  in  our  country's  history. 


U.  S    ARMY, 
1882. 


8o  RESOLUTIONS     UPON    SLAVERY. 


RESOLUTIONS   UPON   DOMESTIC  SLAVERY 
IN   THE    ILLINOIS   LEGISLATURE. 

March  3,  1837. 

The  following  protest  was  presented  to  the  House, 
which  was  read  and  ordered  to  be  spread  on  the  journals, 
to  wit : 

"  Resolutions  upon  the  subject  of  domestic  slavery 
having  passed  both  branches  of  the  General  Assembly, 
at  its  present  session,  the  undersigned  hereby  protest 
against  the  passage  of  the  same. 

"  They  believe  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is 
founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad  policy ;  but  that  the 
promulgation  of  abolition  doctrines  tends  rather  to  in- 
crease than  abate  its  evils. 

"They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  has  no  power,  under  the  Constitution,  to  inter- 
fere with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  different  States. 

"They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  has  the  power,  under  the  Constitution,  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia ;  but  that  the  power 
ought  not  to  be  exercised  unless  at  the  request  of  the 
people  of  said  District.  The  difference  between  these 
opinions  and  those  contained  in  the  said  resolutions,  is 
their  reason  for  entering  this  protest. 
(Signed) 

"  DAN.  STONE, 
"  A.  LINCOLN, 
"Representatives  from  the  County  of  Sangamon." 


LYMAN    ABBOTT.  81 


TO  comprehend  the  current  of  history  sympathetically, 
to  appreciate  the  spirit  of  the  age,  prophetically,  to 
know  what  God,  by  his  providence,  is  working  out  in  the 
epoch  and  the  community,  and  so  to  work  with  him  as  to 
guide  the  current  and  embody  in  noble  deeds  the  spirit  of 
the  age  in  working  out  the  divine  problem, — this  is  true 
greatness.  The  man  who  sets  his  powers,  however 
gigantic,  to  stemming  the  current  and  thwarting  the  di- 
vine purposes,  is  not  truly  great. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  made  the  Chief  Executive  of  a 
nation  whose  Constitution  was  unlike  that  of  any  other 
nation  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  We  assume  that,  ordi- 
narily, public  sentiment  will  change  so  gradually  that  the 
nation  can  always  secure  a  true  representative  of  its  pur- 
pose in  the  presidential  chair  by  an  election  every  four 
years.  Mr.  Lincoln  held  the  presidential  office  at  a  time 
when  public  sentiment  was  revolutionized  in  less  than 
four  years.  When  he  was  called  to  the  presidency,  only 
a  very  insignificant  minority  in  the  nation  was  willing 
that  slavery  should  be  interfered  with,  and  only  a  bare 
majority  of  the  loyal  North  were  prepared  even  to  en- 
force the  laws  in  rebellious  States.  Before  his  term  of 
office  had  expired,  a  great  body  of  the  North  were  ready, 
not  only  to  put  down  rebellion  by  force  of  arms,  but  in 
doing  this  to  enfranchise  the  negro  and  to  put  arms  into 
his  hands.  It  was  the  peculiar  genius  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, that  he  was  able,  by  his  sympathetic  insight,  to  per- 
ceive the  change  in  public  sentiment  without  waiting  for 


8a  LYMAN    ABBOTT. 

it  to  be  formulated  in  any  legislative  action ;  to  keep 
pace  with  it,  to  lead  and  direct  it,  to  quicken  laggard 
spirits,  to  hold  in  the  too  ardent,  too  impetuous,  and  too 
hasty  ones,  and  thus,  when  he  signed  the  emancipation 
proclamation,  to  make  his  signature,  not  the  act  of  an 
individual  man,  the  edict  of  a  military  imperator,  but 
the  representative  act  of  a  great  nation.  He  was  the 
greatest  President  in  American  History,  because  in  a 
time  of  revolution  he  comprehended  the  spirit  of  Ameri- 
can institutions,  grasped  the  purposes  of  the  American 
people,  and  embodied  them  in  an  act  of  justice  and  hu- 
manity which  was  in  the  highest  sense  the  act  of  the 
American  Republic. 


CORNWALL-ON-H  UDSON, 

1881. 


CHARLES    FRANCIS    ADAMS.  83 


PERSONALLY  I  never  saw  President  Lincoln  more 
than  twice  in  my  life,  and  then  for  a  very  few  min- 
utes. He  then  frankly  told  me  that  my  mission  to  Great 
Britain  had  not  been  altogether  his  selection,  but  I  believe 
he  became  well  satisfied  afterwards.  So,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  became  from  a  very  lukewarm  admirer  of  his,  one 
of  the  most  appreciative  of  his  high  qualities,  and  mourn- 
ers of  his  great  loss.  I  shall  never  forget  the  moment 
when,  in  London,  the  tidings  of  this  loss  were  brought  to 
me.  It  seemed  as  if  we  were  all  afloat  in  the  midst  of  a 
boundless  ocean. 


BOSTON,  1880. 


84  AN    ADDRESS. 


AN  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED     BEFORE      THE      SPRINGFIELD     WASHINGTONIAN 
TEMPERANCE    SOCIETY,    AT   THE     SECOND     PRESBYTER- 
IAN CHURCH,  ON  THE  22D  DAY  OF  FEBRUARY, 
1842,    BY    ABRAHAM     LINCOLN,      ESQ. 

Although  the  Temperance  Cause  has  been  in  progress 
for  nearly  twenty  years,  it  is  apparent  to  all  that  it  is  just 
now  being  crowned  with  a  degree  of  success,  hitherto 
unparalleled. 

The  list  of  its  friends  is  daily  swelled  by  the  additions 
of  fifties,  of  hundreds,  and  of  thousands.  The  cause 
itself  seems  suddenly  transformed  from  a  cold  abstract 
theory,  to  a  living,  breathing,  active  and  powerful  chief- 
tain, going  forth  "conquering  and  to  conquer."  The 
citadels  of  his  great  adversary  are  daily  being  stormed 
and  dismantled ;  his  temples  and  his  altars,  where  the 
rites  of  his  idolatrous  worship  have  long  been  performed, 
and  where  human  sacrifices  have  long  been  wont  to  be 
made,  are  daily  desecrated  and  deserted.  The  trump  of 
the  conqueror's  fame  is  sounding  from  hill  to  hill,  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  from  land  to  land,  and  calling  millions  to 
his  standard  at  a  blast. 

For  this  new  and  splendid  success  we  heartily  rejoice. 
That  that  success  is  so  much  greater  now,  than  hereto- 
fore, is  doubtless  owing  to  rational  causes ;  and  if  we 
would  have  it  continue,  we  shall  do  well  to  inquire  what 
those  causes  are. 


AN    ADDRESS.  85 

The  warfare  heretofore  waged  against  the  demon 
hitempe/ance,  has,  somehow  or  other,  been  erroneous. 
Either  the  champions  engaged,  or  the  tactics  they 
adopted,  have  not  been  the  most  proper.  These  cham- 
pions, for  the  most  part,  have  been  preachers,  lawyers  and 
hired  agents ;  between  these  and  the  mass  of  mankind, 
there  is  a  want  of  approachability,  if  the  term  be  admis- 
sible, partial  at  least,  fatal  to  their  success.  They  are 
supposed  to  have  no  sympathy  of  feeling  or  interest 
with  those  very  persons  whom  it  is  their  object  to  con- 
vince and  persuade. 

And  again,  it  is  so  easy  and  so  common  to  ascribe 
motives  to  men  of  these  classes,  other  than  those  they 
profess  to  act  upon.  The  preacher,  it  is  said,  advocates 
temperance  because  he  is  a  fanatic,  and  desires  a  union 
of  the  church  and  state;,  the  lawyer  from  his  pride,  and 
vanity  of  hearing  himself  speak ;  and  the  hired  agent 
for  his  salary. 

But  when  one  who  has  long  been  known  as  a  victim 
of  intemperance  bursts  the  fetters  that  have  bound  him, 
and  appears  before  his  neighbors  "clothed  and  in  his  right 
mind,"  a  redeemed  specimen  of  long-lost  humanity,  and 
stands  up  with  tears  of  joy  trembling  in  his  eyes,  to 
tell  of  the  miseries  once  endured,  now  to  be  endured  no 
more  forever,  of  his  once  naked  and  starving  children, 
now  clad  and  fed  comfortably,  of  a  wife,  long  weighed 
down  with  woe,  weeping,  and  a  broken  heart,  now 
restored  to  health,  happiness  and  a  renewed  affection,  and 
how  easily  it  is  all  done,  once  it  is  resolved  to  be  done ; 
how  simple  his  language ;  there  is  a  logic  and  an  eloquence 
in  it  that  few  with  human  feelings  can  resist.  They  can- 


86  AN    ADDRESS. 

not  say  that  he  desires  a  union  of  church  and  state,  for 
he  is  not  a  church-member ;  they  cannot  say  he  is  vain  of 
hearing  himself  speak,  for  his  whole  demeanor  shows  he 
would  gladly  avoid  speaking  at  all ;  they  cannot  say  he 
speaks  for  pay,  for  he  receives  none,  and  asks  for  none. 
Nor  can  his  sincerity  in  any  way  be  doubted,  or  his  sym- 
pathy for  those  he  would  persuade  to  imitate  his  example 
be  denied. 

In  my  judgment  it  is  to  the  battles  of  this  new  class 
of  champions  that  our  late  success  is  greatly,  perhaps 
chiefly,  owing.  But  had  the  old-school  champions  them- 
selves been  of  the  most  wise  selecting?  Was  their 
system  of  tactics  the  most  judicious  ?  It  seems  to  me  it 
was  not.  Too  much  denunciation  against  dram-sellers 
and  dram-drinkers  was  indulged  in.  This,  I  think,  was 
both  impolitic  and  unjust.  It  was  impolitic,  because  it  is 
not  much  in  the  nature  of  man  to  be  driven  to  anything ; 
still  less  to  be  driven  about  that  which  is  exclusively 
his  own  business ;  and  least  of  all,  where  such  driving  is  to 
be  submitted  to  at  the  expense  of  pecuniary  interest,  or 
burning  appetite.  When  the  dram-seller  and  drinker 
were  incessantly  told,  not  in  the  accents  of  entreaty  and 
persuasion,  diffidently  addressed  by  erring  man  to  an 
erring  brother,  but  in  the  thundering  tones  of  anathema 
and  denunciation,  with  which  the  lordly  judge  often 
groups  together  all  the  crimes  of  the  felon's  life,  and 
thrusts  them  in  his  face  just  ere  he  passes  sentence  of 
death  upon  him,  that  they  were  the  authors  of  all  the 
vice  and  misery  and  crime  in  the  land  ;  that  they  were  the 
manufacturers  and  material  of  all  the  thieves  and  robbers 
and  murderers  that  infest  the  earth  ;  that  their  houses 


AN    ADDRESS.  87 

were  the  work-shops  of  the  devil,  and  that  their  persons 
should  be  shunned  by  all  the  good  and  virtuous,  as  moral 
pestilences, — I  say,  when  they  were  told  all  this,  and  in 
this  way,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  they  were  slow,  very 
slow,  to  acknowledge  the  truth  of  such  denunciations, 
and  to  join  the  ranks  of  their  denouncers,  in  a  hue  and 
cry  against  themselves. 

To  have  expected  them  to  do  otherwise  than  they  did 
— to  have  expected  them  not  to  meet  denunciation  with 
denunciation,  crimination  with  crimination,  and  anathema 
with  anathema, — was  to  expect  a  reversal  of  human 
nature,  which  is  God's  decree,  and  can  never  be  reversed. 

When  the  conduct  of  men  is  designed  to  be  influ- 
enced, persuasion,  kind,  unassuming  persuasion,  should 
ever  be  adopted.  It  is  an  old  and  a  true  maxim,  "  that 
a  drop  of  honey  catches  more  flies  than  a  gallon  of  gall." 
So  with  men.  If  you  would  win  a  man  to  your  cause,  first 
convince  him  that  you  are  his  sincere  friend.  Therein  is 
a  drop  of  honey  that  catches  his  heart ;  which,  say  what 
he  will,  is  the  great  high  road  to  his  reason,  and  which, 
when  once  gained,  you  will  find  but  little  trouble  in  cor- 
vincing  his  judgment  of  the  justice  of  your  cause,  if, 
indeed,  that  cause  really  be  a  just  one.  .  On  the  contrary, 
assume  to  dictate  to  his  judgment,  or  to  command  his 
action,  or  to  mark  him  as  one  to  be  shunned  and  despised, 
and  he  will  retreat  within  himself,  close  all  the  avenues 
to  his  head  and  his  heart,  and  though  your  cause  be  naked 
truth  itself,  transformed  to  the  heaviest  lance,  harder 
than  steel,  and  sharper  than  steel  can  be  made,  and 
though  you  throw  it  with  more  than  herculean  force  and 
precision,  you  shall  be  no  more  able  to  pierce  him,  than 


88  AN    ADDRESS. 

to  penetrate  the  hard  shell  of  a  tortoise  with  a  rye-straw. 
Such  is  man,  and  so  must  he  be  understood  by  those  who 
would  lead  him,  even  to  his  own  best  interests. 

On  this  point,  the  Washingtonians  greatly  excel  the 
temperance  advocates  of  former  times.  Those  whom 
they  desire  to  convince  and  persuade  are  their  old  friends 
and  companions.  They  know  they  are  not  demons,  nor 
even  the  worst  of  men  ;  they  know  that  generally  they 
are  kind,  generous  and  charitable,  even  beyond  the 
example  of  their  more  staid  and  sober  neighbors.  They 
are  practical  philanthropists ;  and  they  glow  with  a  gen- 
erous and  brotherly  zeal,  that  mere  theorizers  are  incap- 
able of  feeling.  Benevolence  and  charity  possess  their 
hearts  entirely ;  and  out  of  the  abundance  of  their  hearts 
their  tongues  give  utterance,  "  Love  through  all  their 
actions  run,  and  all  their  words  are  mild :"  in  this  spirit 
they  speak  and  act,  and  in  the  same  they  are  heard  and 
regarded.  And  when  such  is  the  temper  of  the  advocate, 
and  such  of  the  audience,  no  good  cause  can  be  unsuc- 
cessful. But  I  have  said  that  denunciations  against  dram- 
sellers  and  dram-drinkers  are  unjust,  as  well  as  impolitic. 
Let  us  see. 

I  have  not  inquired  at  what  period  of  time  the  use  of 
intoxicating  liquors  commenced ;  nor  is  it  important  to 
know.  It  is  sufficient  that  to  all  of  us  who  now  inhabit 
the  world,  the  practice  of  drinking  them  is  just  as  old  as 
the  world  itself — that  is,  we  have  seen  the  one,  just  as  long 
as  we  have  seen  the  other.  When  all  such  of  us  as  have 
'  now  reached  the  years  of  maturity,  first  opened  our  eyes 
upon  the  stage  of  existence,  we  found  intoxicating  liquors 
recognized  by  everybody,  used  by  everybody,  repudiated 


AN    ADDRESS.  89 

by  nobody.  It  commonly  entered  into  the  first  draught 
of  the  infant,  and  the  last  draught  of  the  dying  man. 
From  the  sideboard  of  the  parson,  down  to  the  ragged 
pocket  of  the  houseless  loafer,  it  was  constantly  found. 
Physicians  prescribed  it,  in  this,  that  and  the  other 
disease ;  Government  provided  it  for  soldiers  and  sailors  ; 
and  to  have  a  rolling  or  raising,  a  husking  or  "hoe-down  " 
anywhere  about  without  it,  was  positively  unsufferable. 
So  too,  it  was  everywhere  a  respectable  article  of  manu- 
facture and  of  merchandise.  The  making  of  it  was 
regarded  as  an  honorable  livelihood,  and  he  could  make 
most,  was  the  most  enterprising  and  respectable.  Large 
and  small  manufactories  of  it  were  everywhere  erected, 
in  which  all  the  earthly  goods  of  their  owners  were  in- 
vested. Wagons  drew  it  from  town  to  town  ;  boats  bore 
it  from  clime  to  clime,  and  the  winds  wafted  it  from 
nation  to  nation  ;  and  merchants  bought  and  sold  it,  by 
wholesale  and  retail,  with  precisely  the  same  feelings  on 
the  part  of  the  seller,  buyer  and  by-stander  as  are  felt  at 
the  selling  and  buying  of  plows,  beef,  bacon,  or  any  other 
of  the  real  necessaries  of  life.  Universal  public  opinion 
not  only  tolerated,  but  recognized  and  adopted  its  use. 

It  is  true,  that  even  then  it  was  known  and  acknowl- 
edged that  many  were  greatly  injured  by  it ;  but  none 
seemed  to  think  the  injury  arose  from  the  use  of  a  bad 
thing,  but  from  the  abuse  of  a  very  good  thing.  The 
victims  of  it  were  to  be  pitied  and  compassionated,  just 
as  are  the  heirs  of  consumption,  and  other  hereditary 
diseases.  Their  failing  was  treated  as  a  misfortune,  and 
not  as  a  crime,  or  even  as  a  disgrace. 

If  then,  what  I  have  been  saying  is  true,  is  it  wonder- 


90  AN    ADDRESS. 

ful,  that  some  should  think  and  act  now,  as  all  thought 
and  acted  twenty  years  ago,  and  is  it  just  to  assail,  con- 
demn, or  despise  them  for  doing  so  ?  The  universal 
sense  of  mankind,  on  any  subject,  is  an  argument,  or  at 
least  an  influence,  not  easily  overcome.  The  success  of 
the  argument  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  an  over-ruling 
Providence,  mainly  depends  upon  that  sense ;  and  men 
ought  not,  in  justice,  to  be  denounced  for  yielding  to  it 
in  any  case,  or  giving  it  up  slowly,  especially  when  they 
are  backed  by  interest,  fixed  habits,  or  burning  appetites. 
Another  error,  as  it  seems  to  me,  into  which  the  old 
reformers  fell,  was  the  position  that  all  habitual  drunk- 
ards were  utterly  incorrigible,  and  therefore,  must  be 
turned  adrift,  and  damned  without  remedy,  in  order  that 
the  grace  of  temperance  might  abound,  to  the  temperate 
then,  and  to  all  mankind  some  hundreds  of  years  there- 
after. There  is  in  this  something  so  repugnant  to 
humanity,  so  uncharitable,  so  cold-blooded  and  feeling- 
less,  that  it  never  did,  nor  never  can  enlist  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  popular  cause.  We  could  not  love  the  man  who 
taught  it — we  could  not  hear  him  with  patience.  The 
heart  could  not  throw  open  its  portals  to  it,  the  generous 
man  could  not  adopt  it,  it  could  not  mix  with  his  blood. 
It  looked  so  fiendishly  selfish,  so  like  throwing  fathers 
,and  brothers  overboard,  to  lighten  the  boat  for  our  se- 
curity— that  the  noble-minded  shrank  from  the  manifest 
meanness  of  the  thing.  And  besides  this,  the  benefits  of 
a  reformation  to  be  effected  by  such  a  system,  were  tco 
remote  in  point  of  time,  to  warmly  engage  many  in  its 
behalf.  Few  can  be  induced  to  labor  exclusively  for  pos- 
terity ;  and  none  will  do  it  enthusiastically.  Posterity 


AN    ADDRESS.  91 

has  done  nothing  for  us  ;  and  theorize  on  it  as  we  may, 
practically  we  shall  do  very  little  for  it  unless  we  are  made 
to  think,  we  are,  at  the  same  time,  doing  something  for 
ourselves. 

What  an  ignorance  of  human  nature  does  it  exhibit, 
to  ask  or  expect  a  whole  community  to  rise  up  and  labor 
for  the  temporal  happiness  of  others,  after  themselves 
shajl  be  consigned  to  the  dust,  a  majority  of  which  com- 
munity take  no  pains  whatever  to  secure  their  own 
eternal  welfare  at  no  greater  distant  day.  Great  distance 
in  either  time  or  space  has  wonderful  power  to  lull  and 
render  quiescent  the  human  mind.  Pleasures  to  be  en- 
joyed, or  pains  to  be  endured,  after  we  shall  be  dead  and 
gone,  are  but  little  regarded,  even  in  our  own  cases,  and 
much  less  in  the  cases  of  others. 

Still,  in  addition  to  this,  there  is  something  so  ludicrous, 
in  promises  of  good,  or  threats  of  evil,  a  great  way  off, 
as  to  render  the  whole  subject  with  which  they  are  con- 
nected, easily  turned  into  ridicule.  "  Better  lay  down 
that  spade  you're  stealing,  Paddy — if  you  don't*  you'll 
pay  for  it  at  the  day  of  judgment."  "  Be  the  powers,  if 
ye'll  credit  me  so  long  I'll  take  another  jist." 

By  the  Washingtonians  this  system  of  consigning  the 
habitual  drunkard  to  hopeless  ruin  is  repudiated.  They 
adopt  a  more  enlarged  philanthropy,  they  go  for  present 
as  well  as  future  good.  They  labor  for  all  now  living, 
as  well  as  hereafter  to  live.  They  teach  hope  to  all — de- 
spair to  none.  As  applying  to  their  cause,  they  deny 
the  doctrine  of  unpardonable  sin ;  as  in  Christianity  it  is 
taught,  so  in  this  they  teach — 


9*  AN    ADDRESS. 

"  While  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn, 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return." 

And,  what  is  a  matter  of  the  most  profound  congratula- 
tion, they,  by  experiment  upon  experiment,  and  example 
upon  example,  prove  the  maxim  to  be  no  less  true  in  the 
one  case  than  in  the  other.  On  every  hand  we  behold 
those,  who  but  yesterday  were  the  chief  of  sinners,  now 
the  chief  apostles  of  the  cause.  Drunken  devils  are  qast 
out  by  ones,  by  sevens,  by  legions  ;  and  their  unfortunate 
victims,  like  the  poor  possessed,  who  was  redeemed  from 
his  long  and  lonely  wanderings  in  the  tombs,  are  publish- 
ing to  the  ends  of  the  earth  how  great  things  have  been 
done  for  them. 

To  these  new  champions,  and  this  new  system  of  tac- 
tics, our  late  success  is  mainly  owing  ;  and  to  them  we 
must  mainly  look  for  the  final  consummation.  The  ball 
is  now  rolling  gloriously  on,  and  none  are  so  able  as  they 
to  increase  its  speed,  and  its  bulk — to  add  to  its  mo- 
mentum and  its  magnitude — even  though  unlearned  in 
letters,  for  this  task  none  are  so  well  educated.  To  fit 
them  for  this  work  they  have  been  taught  in  the  true 
school.  They  have  been  in  that  gulf,  from  which  they 
would  teach  others  the  means  of  escape.  They  have 
passed  that  prison  wall,  which  others  have  long  declared 
impassable ;  and  who  that  has  not,  shall  dare  to  weigh 
opinions  with  them  as  to  the  mode  of  passing  ? 

But  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  insisted,  that  those  who 
have  suffered  by  intemperance  personally,  and  have  re- 
formed, are  the  most  powerful  and  efficient  instruments 
to,push  the  reformation  to  ultimate  success,  it  does  not 
follow  that  those  who  have  not  suffered  have  no  part  left 


AN    ADDRESS.  93 

them  to  perform.  Whether  or  not  the  world  would  be 
vastly  benefitted  by  a  total  and  final  banishment  from  it 
of  all  intoxicating  drinks,  seems  to  me  not  now  an  open 
question.  Three-fourths  of  mankind  confess  the  affirm- 
ative with  their  tongues ;  and,  I  believe,  all  'the  rest 
acknowledge  it  in  their  hearts. 

Ought  any,  then,  to  refuse  their  aid  in  doing  what 
the  good  of  the  whole  demands  ?  Shall  he  who  cannot 
do  much,  be,  for  that  reason,  excused  if  he  do  nothing  ? 
"But,"  says  one,  "what  good  can  I  do  by  signing  the 
pledge?  I  never  drink,  even  without  signing."  This 
question  has  already  been  asked  and  answered  more  than 
a  million  of  times.  Let  it  be  answered  once  more.  For 
the  man  to  suddenly,  or  in  any  other  way,  to  break  off 
from  the  use  of  drams,  who  has  indulged  in  them  for  a 
long  course  of  years,  and  until  his  appetite  for  them  has 
grown  ten  or  a  hundred  fold  stronger  and  more  craving 
than  any  natural  "appetite  can  be,  requires  a  most  power- 
ful moral  effort.  In  such  an  undertaking  he  needs  every 
moral  support  and  influence  that  can  possibly  be  brought 
to  his  aid,  and  thrown  around  him.  And  not  only  so, 
but  every  moral  prop  should  be  taken  from  whatever 
argument  might  rise  in  his  mind,  to  lure  him  to  his  back- 
sliding. When  he  casts  his  eyes  around  him,  he  should  be 
able  to  see  all  that  he  respects,  all  that  he  admires,  all 
that  he  loves,  kindly  and  anxiously  pointing  him  onward, 
and  none  beckoning  him  back  to  his  former  misesaLle 
"  wallowing  in  the  mire." 

But  it  is  said  by  some,  that  men  will  think  and  act 
for  themselves ;  that  none  will  disuse  spirits  or  anything 
else  br.cause  his  neighbors  do ;  and  that  moral  influence 


94  AN    ADDRESS. 

is  not  that  powerful  engine  contended  for.  Let  us  ex- 
amine this.  Let  me  ask  the  man  who  could  maintain 
this  position  most  stiffly,  what  compensation  he  will 
accept  to  go  to  church  some  Sunday  and  sit  during  the 
sermon  with  his  wife's  bonnet  upon  his  head?  Not  a 
trifle,  I'll  venture.  And  why  not  ?  There  would  be 
nothing  irreligious  in  it,  nothing  immoral,  nothing  un- 
comfortable— then  why  not  ?  Is  it  not  because  there 
would  be  something  egregiously  unfashionable  in  it? 
Then  it  is  the  influence  of  fashion  ;  and  what  is  the 
influence  of  fashion  but  the  influence  that  other  people's 
actions  have  on  our  own  actions — the  strong  inclination 
each  of  us  feels  to  do  as  we  see  all  our  neighbors  do  ? 
Nor  is  the  influence  of  fashion  confined  to  any  particu- 
lar thing  or  class  of  things.  It  is  just  as  strong  on  one 
subject  as  another.  Let  us  make  it  as  unfashionable  to 
withhold  our  names  from  the  temperance  pledge,  as  for 
husbands  to  wear  their  wives'  bonnets  to  church,  and 
instances  will  be  just  as  rare  in  the  one  case  as  the  other. 

"  But,"  say  some,  "  we  are  no  drunkards,  and  we  shall 
not  acknowledge  ourselves  such,  by  joining  a  reformed 
drunkards'  society,  whatever  our  influence  might  be." 
Surely,  no  Christian  will  adhere  to  this  objection. 

If  they  believe  as  they  profess,  that  Omnipotence 
condescended  to  take  on  himself  the  form  of  sinful  man, 
and,  as  such,  to  die  an  ignominious  death  for  their  sakes, 
surely,  they  will  not  refuse  submission  to  the  infinitely 
lesser  condescension,  for  the  temporal,  and  perhaps 
eternal  salvation,  of  a  large,  erring,  and  unfortunate  class 
of  their  fellow-creatures.  Nor  is  the  condescension  very 
great.  In  my  judgment  such  of  us  as  have  never  fallen 


I 
AN    ADDRESS.  95 

victims,  have  been  spared  more  from  the  absence  of  appe 
tite,  than  from  any  mental  or  moral  superiority  over  those 
who  have.  Indeed,  I  believe,  if  we  take  habitual  drunk- 
ards as  a  class,  their  heads  and  their  hearts  will  bear  an 
advantageous  comparison  with  those  of  any  other  class. 
There  seems  ever  to  have  been  a  proneness  in  the  bril- 
liant and  warm-blooded  to  fall  into  this  vice — the  demon 
of  intemperance  ever  seems  to  have  delighted  in  sucking 
the  blood  of  genius  and  generosity.  What  one  of  us 
but  can  call  to  mind  some  relative,  more  promising  in 
youth  than  all  his  fellows,  who  has  fallen  a  sacrifice  to 
his  rapacity  ?  He  ever  seems  to  have  gone  forth  like 
the  Egyptian  angel  of  death,  commissioned  to  slay,  if  not 
the  first,  the  fairest  born  of  every  family.  Shall  he  now 
be  arrested  in  his  desolating  career  ?  In  that  arrest,  all 
can  give  aid  that  will ;  and  who  shall  be  excused  that  can, 
and  will  not  ?  Far  around  as  human  breath  has  ever 
blown,  he  keeps  our  fathers,  our  brothers,  our  sons,  and  our 
friends  prostrate  in  the  chains  of  moral  death.  To  all 
the  living,  everywhere,  we  cry,  "  Come,  sound  the  moral 
trump,  that  these  may  rise  and  stand  up  an  exceeding 
great  army." — "  Come  from  the  four  winds,  O  breath  !  and 
breathe  upon  these  slain,  that  they  may  live."  If  the 
relative  grandeur  of  revolutions  shall  be  estimated  by  the 
great  amount  of  human  misery  they  alleviate,  and  the 
small  amount  they  inflict,  then,  indeed,  will  this  be  the 
grandest  the  world  shall  ever  have  seen, 

Of  our  political  revolution  of  '76  we  are  all  justly 
proud.  It  has  given  us  a  degree  of  political  freedom  far 
exceeding  that  of  any  other  nations  of  the  earth.  In  it  the 
world  has  found  a  solution  of  the  long  mooted  problem. 


96  AN    ADDRESS. 

as  to  the  capability  of  man  to  govern  himself.  In  it  was 
the  germ  which  has  vegetated,  and  still  is  to  grow  and 
expand  into  the  universal  liberty  of  mankind, 

But,  with  all  these  glorious  results,  past,  present,  and 
to  come,  it  had  its  evils  too.  It  breathed  forth  famine, 
swam  in  blood,  and  rode  in  fire ;  and  long,  long  after,  the 
orphans'  cry  and  the  widows'  wail  continued  to  break  the 
sad  silence  that  ensued.  These  were  the  price,  the  inev- 
itable price,  paid  for  the  blessings  it  bought. 

Turn  now  to  the  temperance  revolution.  In  it  we 
shall  find  a  stronger  bondage  broken,  a  viler  slavery  man- 
umitted, a  greater  tyrant  deposed — in  it,  more  of  want 
supplied,  more  disease  healed,  more  sorrow  assuaged. 
By  it,  no  orphans  starving,  no  widows  weeping.  By  it, 
none  wounded  in  feeling,  none  injured  in  interest;  even 
the  dram-maker  and  dram-seller  will  have  glided  into 
other  occupations  so  gradually  as  never  to  have  felt  the 
change,  and  will  stand  ready  to  join  all  others  in  the  uni- 
versal song  of  gladness.  And  what  a  noble  ally  this,  to 
the  cause  of  political  freedom,  with  such  an  aid,  its 
march  cannot  fail  to  be  on  and  on,  till  every  son  of  earth 
shall  drink  in  rich  fruition  the  sorrow-quenching  draughts 
of  perfect  liberty.  Happy  day,  when,  all  appetites  con- 
trolled, all  poisons  subdued,  all  matter  subjected,  mind, 
all-conquering  mind,  shall  live  and  move,  the  monarch  of 
the  world  !  Glorious  consummation  !  Hail,  fall  of  fury ! 
Reign  of  reason,  all  hail ! 

And  when  the  victory  shall  be  complete — when  there 
shall  be  neither  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard  on  the  earth — 
how  proud  the  title  of  that  Land,  which  may  truly  claim 
to  be  the  birth-place  and  the  cradle  of  both  those  revo- 


AN    ADDRESS.  97 

lutions  that  shall  have  ended  in  that  victory.  How 
nobly  distinguished  that  people,  who  shall  have  planted, 
and  nurtured  to  maturity,  both  the  political  and  moral 
freedom  of  their  species. 

This  is  the  one  hundred  and  tenth  anniversary  of  the 
birthday  of  Washington — we  are  met  to  celebrate  this 
day.  Washington  is  the  mightiest  name  of  earth — long 
since  mightiest  in  the  cause  of  civil  liberty,  still  mightiest 
in  moral  reformation.  On  that  name  a  eulogy  is  ex- 
pected. It  cannot  be.  To  add  brightness  to  the  sun,  or 
glory  to  the  name  of  Washington  is  alike  impossible. 
Let  none  attempt  it.  In  solemn  awe  pronounce  the 
name,  and  in  its  naked,  deathless  splendor  leave  it 
shining  on. 
7 


98  SPEECH    DELIVERED    AT    PEORIA. 


SPEECH  DELIVERED  AT  PEORIA,  ILLINOIS, 
OCT.  1 6,  1854. 

Finally  I  insist  that  if  there  is  any  thing  which  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  whole  people  to  never  intrust  to  any  hands 
but  their  own,  that  thing  is  the  preservation  and  perpe- 
tuity of  their  own  liberties  and  institutions.  And  if  they 
shall  think,  as  I  do,  that  the  extension  of  slavery  endan- 
gers them,  more  than  any  or  all  other  causes,  how  recreant 
to  themselves  if  they  submit  the  question,  and  with  it  the 
fate  of  their  country,  to  a  mere  handful  of  men,  bent  only 
on  temporary  self-interest.  If  this  question  of  slavery 
extension  were  an  insignificant  one — one  having  no  power 
to  do  harm — it  might  be  shuffled  aside  in  this  way  ;  but 
being  as  it  is,  the  great  Behemoth  of  danger,  shall  the 
strong  gripe  of  the  nation  be  loosened  upon  him,  to 
intrust  him  to  the  hands  of  such  feeble  keepers  ?  I  have 
done  with  this  mighty  argument  of  self-government.  Go 
sacred  thing  ;  Go  in  peace !  Much  as  I  hate  slavery,  1 
would  consent  to  the  extension  of  it  rather  than  see  the 
Union  dissolved,  just  as  I  would  consent  to  any  great  evil 
to  avoid  a  greater  one.  But  when  I  go  to  Union-saving 
I  must  believe,  at  least,  that  the  means  I  employ  have 
some  adaptation  to  the  end. 


T.    S.    ARTHUR.  99 


AS  the  years  pass,  and  we  look  back  upon  the  life  and 
work  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  during  the  time  he  was 
President  of  the  United  States,  our  admiration  and  rever- 
ence for  the  man  increases.  For  unselfish  devotion  to  the 
public  welfare,  purity  of  character,  freedom  from  partisan- 
ship and  personal  ambition,  and  ability  to  comprehend  and 
deal  with  the.  momentous  questions  at  issue  in  our  great 
struggle  for  national  existence,  he  was  first  among  the 
ablest  statesmen  and  most  loyal  men  of  his  time. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


ioo  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT.FROM  MR.  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH, 

DELIVERED   IN   REPRESENTATIVE'S   HALL,   SPRINGFIELD, 
ILLINOIS,  JUNE  26,  1857. 

In  those  days,  our  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
held  sacred  by  all,  and  thought  to  include  all ;  but  now, 
to  aid  in  making  the  bondage  of  the  negro  universal  and 
eternal,  it  is  assailed  and  sneered  at,  and  construed,  and 
hawked  at,  and  torn,  till,  if  its  framers  could  rise  from 
their  graves,  they  could  not  at  all  recognize  it.  All  the 
powers  of  earth  seem  rapidly  combining  against  him. 
Mammon  is  after  him,  ambition  follows,  philosophy  fol- 
lows, and  the  theology  of  the  day  is  fast  joining  the  cry. 
They  have  him  in  his  prison-house ;  they  have  searched 
his  person,  and  left  no  prying  instrument  with  him. 
One  after  another,  they  have  closed  the  heavy  iron  doors 
upon  him ;  and  now  they  have  him,  as  it  were,  bolted  in 
with  a  lock  of  a  hundred  keys,  which  can  never  be  un- 
locked without  the  concurrence  of  every  key ;  the  keys 
in  the  hands  of  a  hundred  different  men,  and  they  scat- 
tered to  a  hundred  different  and  distant  places ;  and  they 
stand  musing  as  to  what  invention,  in  all  the  dominions 
of  mind  and  matter,  can  be  produced  to  make  the  impos- 
sibility of  his  escape  more  complete  than  it  is. 


JOHN    G.     WHITTIER. 


101 


THE  weary  form,  that  rested  not, 
Save  in  a  martyr's  grave ; 
The  care-worn  face  that  none  forgot, 
Turned  to  the  kneeling  slave. 

We  resi  m  peace,  where  his  sad  eyes 
Saw  peril,  strife  and  pain  ; 

His  was  the  awful  sacrifice, 
And  ours,  the  priceless  gain. 


DANVERS,  i88a 


A.    LINCOLN. 


Chicago,  July  24,  1858. 
HON.  S.  A.  DOUGLAS. 

My  Dear  Sir :  Will  it  be  agreeable  to  you 
to  make  an  arrangement  to  divide  time,  and  address 
the  same  audience,  during  the  present  canvass,  etc.? 
Mr.  Judd  is  authorized  to  receive  your  answer;  and 
if  agreeable  to  you,  to  enter  into  the  terms  of  such 
agreement,  etc. 

A.   LINCOLN. 


THEO.     L.     CUYLER.  103 


EXTRACT   FROM    MY    SERMON. 

HE  lived  to  see  the  rebellion  in  its  last  agonies ;  he 
lived  to  enter  Richmond  amid  the  acclamations 
of  the  liberated  slave ;  he  lived  until  Sumter's  flag  rose 
again,  like  a  star  of  Bethlehem,  in  the  southern  sky  ;  and 
then,  with  the  martyr's  crown  upon  his  brow,  and  with  four 
million  broken  fetters  in  his  hand,  he  went  up  to  meet 
his  God.  In  a  moment  his  life  crystallizes  into  the  pure, 
white  fame  that  belongs  only  to  the  martyr  for  truth  and 
liberty !  Terrible  as  seems  the  method  of  his  death  to 
us,  it  was,  after  all,  the  most  fitting  and  glorious.  In 
God's  sight,  Lincoln  was  no  more  precious  than  the  hum- 
blest drummer-boy,  who  has  bled  away  his  young  life  on 
the  sod  of  Gettysburgh  or  Chattanooga.  He  had  called 
on  two  hundred  thousand  heroes  to  lay  down  their  lives 
for  their  country ;  and  now  he,  too,  has  gone  to  make 
his  grave  beside  them. 

"So  sleep  the  brave,  who  sink  to  rest, 
By  all  their  country's  wishes  blest." 

When  that  grave,  on  yonder  western  prairie,  shall 
finally  yield  up  its  dead,  glorious  will  be  his  resurrection  ! 
Methinks  that  I  behold  the  spirit  of  the  great  Liberator, 
in  that  judgment  scene,  before  the  assembled  hosts  of 
heaven.  Around  him  are  the  tens  of  thousands  from 
whom  he  struck  the  oppressor's  chain.  Methinks  I  hear 
their  grateful  voices  exclaim,  "We  were  an  hungered,  and 


104 


THEO.     L.     CUYLER. 


thou  gavest  us  the  bread  of  truth  ;  we  were  thirsty  for 
liberty,  and  thou  gavest  us  drink  ;  we  were  strangers,  and 
thou  didst  take  us  in  ;  we  were  sick  with  two  centuries  of 
sorrow,  and  thou  didst  visit  us ;  we  were  in  the  prison- 
house  of  bondage,  and  thou  earnest  unto  us."  And  the 
King  shall  say  unto  him :  "  In  as  much  as  thou  done  it 
unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  thou  hast 
done  it  unto  me.  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant ; 
enter  into  the  joy  of  the  Lord." 


BROOKLYN,  1882. 


H.    S.    BENNETT.  105 


I  HAVE  been  working  for  thirteen  years  in  Fisk  Uni- 
versity, an  institution  which  is  devoted  to  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  colored  race  in  the  United  States.  And  I  am 
more  and  more  convinced,  from  year  to  year,  that  no  one 
can  fully  comprehend  the  magnitude  and  grandeur  of  the 
work  achieved  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  until  he  has  learned 
to  look  upon  him  as  the  colored  people  regard  him.  To 
the  white  Northerner  he  is  preserver  of  the  Union  and 
the  martyred  President,  to  the  colored  people  he  is  their 
deliverer,  their  savior.  The  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
is  enshrined  forever  as  sacred  in  the  hearts  of  a  grateful 
people,  whom  he  has  redeemed. 


FISK  UNIVERSITY, 
188o. 


io6  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT    FROM   MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH, 

AT   SPRINGFIELD,    ILLINOIS,    JUNE    17,     1858. 

"  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  I 
believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently, 
half  slave,  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to 
be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do 
expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one 
thing,  or  all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery 
will  arrest  the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where 
the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the 
course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push 
it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states, 
old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

I  have  always  hated  slavery,  I  think,  as  much  as  any 
abolitionist. 

Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  conducted 
by,  its  own  doubted  friends — those  whose  hands  are  free, 
whose  hearts  are  in  the  work, — who  do  care  for  the  result. 
Two  years  ago,  the  Republicans  of  the  nation  mustered 
over  thirteen  hundred  thousand  strong.  We  did  this 
under  the  single  impulse  of  resistance  to  a  common 
danger,  with  every  external  circumstance  against  us.  Of 
strange,  discordant,  and  even  hostile  elements,  we  gath- 
ered from  the  four  winds,  and  formed  and  fought  the  bat- 
tle through,  under  the  constant  hot  fire  of  a  disciplined, 
proud,  and  pampered  enemy.  Did  we  brave  all,  then,  to 


EXTRACT  FROM  MR.  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH.       107 

falter  now, — now,  when  that  same  enemy  is  wavering, 
dissevered,  and  belligerent  ?  The  result  is  not  doubtful. 
We  shall  not  fail, — if  we  stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail. 
Wise  counsels  may  accelerate,  or  mistakes  delay  it,  but 
sooner  or  later,  the  victory  is  sure  to  come. 


io8  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT  FROM  MR.  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH 

AT.  CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS,  JULY    IO,   1858. 

Now,  it  happens  that  we  meet  together  once  every  year, 
sometimes  about  the  4th  of  July,  for  some  reason  or  other. 

These  4th  of  July  gatherings  I  suppose  have  their 
uses.  If  you  will  indulge  me,  I  will  state  what  I  suppose 
to  be  some  of  them.  We  are  now  a  mighty  nation ;  we 
are  thirty,  or  about  one-fifteenth  part  of  the  dry  land  of 
the  whole  earth.  We  run  our  memory  back  over  the 
pages  of  history  for  about  eighty-two  years,  and  we  con- 
sider that  we  were  then  a  very  small  people  in  point  of 
numbers,  vastly  inferior  to  what  we  are  now,  with  a 
vastly  less  extent  of  country,  with  vastly  less  of  every- 
thing we  deem  desirable  among  men.  We  look  upon  the 
change  as  exceedingly  advantageous  to  us  and  to  our 
posterity,  and  we  fix  upon  something  that  happened 
away  back,  as  in  some  way  or  other  being  connected  with 
this  rise  of  prosperity.  We  find  a  race  of  men  living  in 
that  day,  whom  we  claim  as  our  fathers  and  grandfathers  ; 
they  were  iron  men  ;  they  fought  for  the  principle  that  they 
were  contending  for ;  and  we  understood  that  by  what  they 
then  did  it  has  followed  that  the  degree  of  prosperity 
which  we  now  enjoy  has  come  to  us.  We  hold  this 
annual  celebration  to  remind  ourselves  of  all  the  good 
done  in  this  process  of  time,  of  how  it  was  done  and  who 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH.  109 

did  it,  and  how  we  are  historically  connected  with  it ;  and 
we  go  from  these  meetings  in  better  humor  with  ourselves ; 
we  feel  more  attached  the  one  to  the  other  ;  and  more 
firmly  bound  to  the  country  we  inhabit.  In  every  way 
we  are  better  men  in  the  age  and  race  and  country  in 
which  we  live,  for  these  celebrations.  But  after  we  have 
done  all  this  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  world.  There 
is  something  else  connected  with  it. 

We  have,  besides  these  men  descended  by  blood  from 
our  ancestors,  among  us,  perhaps  half  our  people,  who  are 
not  descendants  at  all  of  these  men  ;  they  are  men  who 
have  come  from  Europe — German,  Irish,  French,  and 
Scandinavian — men  that  have  come  from  Europe  them- 
selves, or  whose  ancestors  have  come  hither  and  settled 
here,  finding  themselves  our  equals  in  all  things.  If  they 
look  back  through  this  history  to  trace  their  connection 
with  those  days  by  blood,  they  find  they  have  none,  they 
cannot  carry  themselves  back  into  that  glorious  epoch 
and  make  themselves  feel  that  they  are  part  of  us  ;  and 
when  they  look  through  that  old  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, they  find  that  those  men  say  that,  "  we  hold  these 
truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal," 
and  then  they  feel  that  that  moral  sentiment  taught  in 
that  day  evidences  their  relation  to  those  men  ;  that  it 
is  the  father  of  all  moral  principle  in  them,  and  they  have 
a  right  to  claim  it  as  though  they  were  blood  of  the  blood, 
and  flesh  of  the  flesh,  of  the  men  who  wrote  that  declara- 
tion, and  so  they  are.  That  is  the  electric  cord  in  that  decla- 
ration that  links  the  hearts  of  patriotic  and  liberty-loving 
men  together,  that  will  link  those  patriotic  hearts  as  long 


no  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 

as  the  love  of  freedom  exists  in  the  minds  of  men  through- 
out the  world. 

I  am  a  poor  hand  to  quote  Scripture.  I  will  try  it 
again,  however.  It  is  said  in  one  of  the  admonitions  of 
our  Lord,  "As  your  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect,  be  ye 
also  perfect"  The  Savior,  I  suppose,  did  not  expect 
that  any  human  creature  could  be  perfect  as  the  Father 
in  Heaven  ;  but  He  said,  "  As  your  Father  in  Heaven 
is  perfect,  be  ye  also  perfect."  He  set  that  up  as  a  stand- 
ard, and  he  who  did  most  toward  reaching  that  standard, 
attained  the  highest  degree  of  moral  perfection.  So  I 
say,  in  relation  to  the  principle  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,  let  it  be  as  nearly  reached  as  we  can.  If  we  can- 
not give  freedom  to  every  creature,  let  us  do  nothing 
that  will  impose  slavery  upon  any  other  creature.  Let 
us  then  turn  this  government  back  into  the  channel  in 
which  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  originally  placed  it. 
Let  us  stand  firmly  by  each  other.  Let  us  discard  all 
this  quibbling  about  this  man  and  the  other  man,  this 
race  and  that  race  and  the  other  race,  being  inferior, 
and  therefore  they  must  be  placed  in  an  inferior  position — 
discarding  our  standing  that  we  have  left  us.  Let  us 
discard  all  these  things,  and  unite  as  one  people  through- 
out this  land,  until  we  shall  once  more  stand  up  declaring 
that  all  men  are  created  equal.  v 


M.     C.     MEJGS.  in 


MR.    LINCOLN,  to  those  who  knew  him  most  inti- 
mately, was  greatest. 

They  saw  and  noted  the  gentleness,  charity,  love,  and 
tenderness  of  his  daily  life  in  all  his  harassing  occupa- 
tions, while  the  pages  of  the  history  of  his  times  record  the 
proofs  of  his  courage  and  wisdom,  and  of  his  fidelity  to 
his  country,  and  to  human  liberty.  He  was  as  eminent 
for  his  patience,  as  for  his  patriotism  and  wisdom. 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT  FROM  MR.  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH 

DELIVERED  AT  SPRINGFIELD,   ILLINOIS,  JULY  17,    1858. 

Senator  Douglas  is  of  world-wide  renown.  All  the 
anxious  politicians  of  his  party,  or  who  have  been  of  his 
party  for  years  past,  have  been  looking  upon  him  as  cer- 
tainly, at  no  distant  day,  to  be  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  They  have  seen  in  his  round,  jolly,  fruitful  face, 
post-offices,  land  offices,  marshalships,  and  cabinet  appoint- 
ments, chargeships,  foreign  missions,  and  sprouting  out  in 
wonderful  exuberance,  ready  to  be  laid  hold  of  by  their 
greedy  hands.  And  as  they  have  been  gazing  upon  this 
attractive  picture  so  long,  they  cannot,  in  the  little  dis- 
traction that  has  taken  place  in  the  party,  bring  them- 
selves to  give  up  the  charming  hope,  but  with  greedier 
anxiety  they  rush  about  him,  sustain  him,  and  give  him 
marches,  triumphal  entries,  and  receptions  beyond  what, 
even  in  the  days  of  his  highest  prosperity,  they  could  have 
brought  about  in  his  favor. 

On  the  contrary,  nobody  has  ever  expected  me  to  be 
President.  In  my  poor,  lean,  lank  face,  nobody  has  ever 
seen  that  any  cabbages  were  sprouting  out.  These  are 
disadvantages,  all  taken  together,  that  the  republicans 
labor  under :  We  have  to  fight  this  battle  upon  principle 
alone.  I  am,  in  a  certain  sense,  made  the  standard-bearer 
in  behalf  of  the  republicans.  So  I  hope  those  with  whom 
I  am  surrounded  have  principle  enough  to  nerve  them- 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH.  113 

selves  for  the  task,  and  leave  nothing  undone  that  can  be 
fairly  done,  to  bring  about  the  right  result. 

My  declarations  upon  this  subject  of  negro  slavery 
may  be  misrepresented,  but  cannot  be  misunderstood.  I 
have  said  that  I  do  not  understand  the  Declaration  to 
mean  that  all  men  were  created  equal  in  all  respects. 
They  are  not  our  equal  in  color ;  but  I  suppose  that  it  does 
mean  to  declare  that  all  men  are  created  equal  in  some 
respects ;  they  are  equal  in  their  right  to  "  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness."  Certainly  the  negro  is  not  our 
equal  in  color,  perhaps  not  in  many  other  respects  ;  still, 
in  the  right  to  put  into  his  mouth  the  bread  that  his  own 
hands  have  earned,  he  is  the  equal  of  c/ery  other  man, 
white  or  black.  .  In  pointing  out  that  more  has  been  given 
you,  you  cannot  be  justified  in  taking  away  the  little  which 
has  been  given  him.  All  I  ask  for  the  negro  is  that  if 
you  do  not  like  him,  let  him  alone.  If  God  gave  him 
but  little  that  little  let  him  enjoy. 
8 


ii4  EXTRACT    FROM    MR,     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH 

AT    OTTAWA,    ILLINOIS,    AUGUST    21,     1858. 

I  hold  that  there  is  no  reason  in  the  world  why  the 
negro  is  not  entitled  to  all  the  natural  rights  enumerated 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  right  to  life,  lib- 
erty, and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  I  hold,  that  he  is  as 
much  entitled  to  these,  as  the  white  man.  I  agree  with 
Judge  Douglas,  that  he  is  not  my  equal  in  many  respects, 
—certainly  not  in  color — perhaps  not  in  moral  or  intel- 
lectual endowment.  But  in  the  right  to  eat  the  bread, 
without  the  leave  of  any  body  else,  which  his  own  hand 
earns,  he  is  my  equal,  and  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas, 
and  the  equal  of  every  living  man. 


THOMAS    A.    EDISON. 


115 


THE  life  and  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  his 
great  services  to  this  country  during  the  war  of 
the  rebellion,  will  stand  as  a  monument  long  after  the 
granite  monuments  erected  to  his  memory  have  crum- 
bled in  the  dust. 


MENLO  PARK,  1880. 


n6  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH 

AT    FREEPORT,    ILLINOIS,    AUGUST    2?,    1858. 

I  have  supposed  myself,  since  the  organization  of  the 
Republican  party  at  Bloomington,  in  May,  1856,  bound 
as  a  party  man,  by  the  platforms  of  the  party,  then,  and 
since.  If,  in  any  interrogatories  which  I  shall  answer,  I 
go  beyond  the  scope  of  what  is  within  these  platforms, 
it  will  be  perceived  that  no  one  is  responsible  but  myself. 

ist.  I  do  not  now,  nor  ever  did,  stand  in  favor  of  the 
unconditional  repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 

2d.  I  do  not  now,  or  ever  did,  stand  pledged 
against  the  admission  of  any  more  slave  States  into  the 
Union. 

3d.  I  do  not  stand  pledged  against  the  admission  of 
a  new  State  into  the  Union,  with  such  a  Constitution  as 
the  people  of  that  State  may  see  fit  to  make. 

4th.  I  do  not  stand  to-day,  pledged  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 

5th.  I  do  not  stand  pledged  to  the  prohibition  of 
the  slave-trade  between  the  different  States. 

6th.  I  am  implied,  if  not  expressly,  pledged  to  a 
belief  in  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  slav- 
ery in  all  the  United  States  Territories., 

7th.  I  am  not  generally  opposed  to  honest  acquisi- 
tion of  territory;  and,  in  any  given  case,  I  would  or 
would  not  oppose  such  acquisition,  accordingly  as  I  might 
think  such  acquisition  would,  or  would  not,  aggravate  the 
slaveiy  question  among  ourselves 


HUGH    M'CULLOCH.  117 


JUST  a.  the  moment  when  the  people  were  rejoicing 
over  the  fall  of  Richmond  and  the  surrender  of  the 
Confederate  armies,  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Na- 
tion, the  most  beloved  and  most  trusted  of  men,  fell  by  the 
hand  of  an  assassin.  For  a  moment  the  nation  was  struck 
dumb  by  the  atrocity  of  the  act,  and  the  magnitude  of  the 
loss  that  had  been  sustained.  As  the  report  flashed  over 
the  wires  that  the  beloved  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Nation, 
in  the  midst  of  rejoicing  over  our  victories  and  the  pros- 
pect of  returning  peace,  had  been  slain,  what  heart  was 
there  throughout  this  broad  land  which  was  not  filled 
with  anguish  and  apprehension  ? — what  thinking  man  did 
not  put  to  himself  the  questions,  Can  the  Republic 
stand  this  unexpected  calamity  ?  Can  our  popular  insti- 
tutions bear  this  new  trial  ?  The  anguish  remained  and 
still  remains,  but  the  apprehension  existed  but  for  a 
moment.  Scarcely  had  the  announcement  been  made  that 
Lincoln  had  fallen,  before  it  was  followed  by  the  report 
that  the  Vice-President  had  taken  the  oath  of  President, 
and  that  the  functions  of  government  were  being  per- 
formed as  regularly  and  quietly  as  though  nothing  had 
happened.  And  what  followed  ?  The  body  of  the  beloved 
President  was  taken  from  Washington  to  Illinois  through 
crowded  cities,  among  a  grief-stricken  and  deeply  excited 
people,  mourning  as  no  people  ever  mourned,  and  moved 
as  no  people  were  ever  moved ;  and  yet  there  was  no 
popular  violence,  no  outbreak  of  popular  passion  ;  borne 
a  thousand  miles  to  its  last  resting-place,  hundreds  of 
thousands  doing  such  honor  to  the  remains  as  were  never 


n8  HUGH    M'CULLOCH. 

paid  to  those  cf  king  or  conqueror,  and  the  public  peace 
notwithstanding  intense  indignation  was  mixed  with 
intense  sorrow,  was  in  no  instance  disturbed.  Hereafter 
there  will  be  no  skepticism  among  us  in  regard  to  the 
wisdom,  the  excellence  and  the  power  of  republican  insti- 
tutions. There  is  no  country  upon  earth  that  could  have 
passed  through  the  trials  to  which  the  United  States  have 
been  subjected  during  the  four  years  of  civil  war  with 
out  being  broken  into  fragments. 

The  more  I  saw  of  Mr.  Lincoln  the  higher  became  my 
admiration  of  his  ability  and  his  character.  Before  I  went 
to  Washington,  and  for  a  short  period  after,  I  doubted  both 
his  nerve  and  his  statesmanship  ;  but  a  closer  observation 
relieved  me  of  these  doubts,  and  before  his  death  I  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  a  man  of  will,  of 
energy,  of  well-balanced  mind,  and  wonderful  sagacity. 
His  practice  of  story-telling  when  the  government  seemed 
to  be  in  imminent  peril,  and  the  sublimest  events  were 
transpiring,  surprised,  if  it  did  not  sometimes  disgust,  those 
who  did  not  know  him  well ;  but  it  indicated  on  his  part 
no  want  of  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  terrible  responsi- 
bility which  rested  upon  him  as  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  a 
great  nation  engaged  in  the  suppression  of  a  desperaFe 
rebellion  which  threatened  its  overthrow.  Story-telling 
with  him  was  something  more  than  a  habit.  He  was  so 
accustomed  to  it  in  social  life  and  in  the  practice  of  his 
profession,  that  it  became  a  part  of  his  nature,  and  so 
accurate  was  his  recollection,  and  so  great  a  fund  had  he 
at  command,  that  he  had  always  anecdotes  and  stories  to 
illustrate  his  arguments  and  delight  those  whose  tastes 
were  similar  to  his  own ;  but  those  who  judged  from  this 


HUGH    M'CULLOCH.  119 

trait  that  he  lacked  deep  feeling  or  sound  judgment,  or  a 
proper  sense  of  the  responsibility  of  his  position,  had  no 
just  appreciation  of  his  character.  He  possessed  all 
these  qualities  in  an  eminent  degree.  It  was  true  of  him, 
as  is  true  of  all  really  noble  and  good  men,  that  those  who 
knew  him  best  had  the  highest  admiration  of  him.  He 
was  not  a  man  of  genius,  but  he  possessed,  in  a  large 
degree,  what  is  far  more  valuable  in  a  public  man, 
excellent  common  sense.  He  did  net  undertake  to  direct 
public  opinion,  but  no  man  understood  better  the  leadings 
of  the  popular  will  or  the  beatings  of  the  popular  heart. 
He  did  not  seem  to  gain  this  knowledge  from  reading  or 
from  observation,  for  he  read  very  few  of  our  public  jour- 
nals, and  was  little  inclined  to  call  out  the  opinions  of 
others.  He  was  a  representative  of  the  people,  and  he  un- 
derstood what  the  people  desired  rather  by  a  study  of  him- 
self than  of  them.  Granting  that,  although  constitution- 
ally honest  himself,  he  did  not  put  a  very  high  valuation 
upon  honesty  in  others,  and  that  he  sometimes  permitted  his 
partiality  for  his  friends  to  influence  his  action  in  a  manner 
that  was  hardly  consistent  with  an  upright  administration 
of  his  great  office,  few  men  have  held  high  position  whose 
conduct  would  so  well  bear  the  severest  criticism  as 
Mr.  Lincoln's.  The  people  have  already  passed  judg- 
ment in  favor  of  the  nobleness  and  uprightness  of  his 
character  and  the  wisdom  of  his  administration,  and  the 
pen  of  impartial  history  will  confirm  the  judgment. 


NEW  YORK,  1882. 


120  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 

» 

EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH 

AT    GALES  BURG,    ILLINOIS,    OCTOBER    7,     1858. 

I  have  all  the  while  maintained,  that  in  so  far  as  it 
should  be  insisted  that  there  was  an  equality  between  the 
*  white  and  black  races  that  should  produce  a  perfect  so- 
cial and  political  equality,  it  was  an  impossibility.  This, 
you  have  seen  in  my  printed  speeches ;  and  with  it,  I 
have  said,  that  in  their  right  to  "life,  liberty  and  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness,"  as  proclaimed  in  that  old  Declaration, 
the  inferior  races  are  our  equals.  And  these  declarations 
I  have  constantly  made  in  reference  to  the  abstract 
moral  question,  to  contemplate  and  consider  when  we 
are  legislating  about  any  new  country,  which  is  not 
already  cursed  with  the  actual  presence  of  the  evil — 
slavery.  I  have  never  manifested  any  impatience  with 
the  necessities  that  spring  from  the  actual  presence  of 
black  people  among  us,  and  the  actual  existence  of  slav- 
ery among  us,  where  it  does  already  exist;  but  I  have 
isisted  that,  in  legislating  for  new  countries,  where  it  does 
not  exist,  there  is  no  just  rule,  other  than  that  "of 
moral  and  abstract  right!  With  reference  to  those 
new  countries,  those  maxims  as  to  the  right  of  a 
people  to  "life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness," were  the  just  rules  to  be  constantly  referred  to. 
There  is  no  misunderstanding  this,  except  by  men  inter- 
ested to  misunderstand  it.  I  take  it  that  I  have  to 
address  an  intelligent  and  reading  community,  who  will 
pursue  what  I  say,  weigh  it,  and  then  judge  whether  I 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH.  121 


advance  improper  or  unsound  views,  or  whether  I 
advance  hypocritical,  and  deceptive,  and  contrary  views 
in  different  portions  of  the  country.  I  believe  myself  to 
be  guilty  of  no  such  thing  as  the  latter,  though,  of  course, 
I  cannot  claim  that  I  am  entirely  free  from  all  error  in 
the  opinions  I  advance. 

I  have  said  once  before,  and  I  will  repeat  it  now,  that 
Mr.  Clay,  when  he  was  once  answering  an  objection  to* 
the  Colonization  Society,  that  it  had  a  tendency  to  the 
ultimate  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  said  that  "  those  who 
would  repress  all  tendencies  to  liberty  and  ultimate 
emancipation,  must  do  more  than  put  down  the  benevo- 
lent efforts  of  the  Colonization  Society — they  must  go 
back  to  the  era  of  our  liberty  and  independence,  and 
muzzle  the  cannon  that  thunders  its  annual  joyous  return 
—they  must  blot  out  the  moral  lights  around  us — they 
must  penetrate  the  human  soul,  and  eradicate  the  light  of 
reason,  and  the  love  of  liberty,"  and  I  do  think — I  repeat, 
though  I  said  it  on  a  former  occasion, — that  Judge 
Douglas,  and  whoever,  like  him,  teaches  that  the  negro 
has  no  share,  humble  though  it  may  be,  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  is  going  back  to  the  era  of  our 
liberty  and  independence,  and  so  far  as  in  him  lies, 
muzzling  the  cannon  that  thunders  its  annual  joyous 
return  ;  that  he  is  blowing  out  the  moral  lights  around  us, 
when  he  contends  that  whoever  wants  slaves  has  a  right 
to  hold  them  :  that  he  is  penetrating,  so  far  as  lies  in  his 
power,  the  human  soul,  and  eradicating  the  light  of  reason 
and  the  love  of  liberty,  when  he  is  in  every  possible  way 
preparing  the  public  mind,  by  his  vast  influence,  for 
making  the  institution  of  slavery  perpetual  and  national. 


122  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 

And  now,  it  only  remains  for  me  to  say  that  it  is  a 
very  grave  question  for  the  people  of  this  Union  to 
consider — whether,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  this  slavery 
question  has  been  the  only  one  that  has  ever  endangered 
our  Republican  institutions — the  only  one  that  has  ever 
threatened  or  menaced  a  dissolution  of  the  Union — that 
has  ever  disturbed  us  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  us  fear 
1for  the  perpetuity  of  our  liberty — in  view  of  these  facts, 
I  think  it  is  an  exceedingly  interesting,  and  important 
question  for  this  people  to  consider  whether  we  shall 
engage  in  the  policy  of  acquiring  additional  territory, 
discarding  altogether  from  our  consideration,  while 
obtaining  new  territory,  the  question  how  it  may  affect 
us  in  regard  to  this,  the  only  endangering  element  to  our 
liberties  and  national  greatness.  The  Judge's  view  has 
been  expressed.  I,  in  my  answers  to  his  question, 
have  expressed  mine.  I  think  it  will  become  an  impor- 
tant and  practical  question.  Our  views  are  before  the 
public.  I  am  willing  and  anxious  that  they  should  con- 
sider them  fully — that  they  should  turn  it  about, 
and  consider  the  importance  of  the  question,  and  arrive 
at  a  just  conclusion  as  to  whether  it  is,  or  is  not,  wise 
in  the  people  of  this  Union,  in  the  acquisition  of  new 
territory,  to  consider  whether  it  will  add  to  the  disturb- 
ance that  is  existing  among  us — whether  it  will  add  to 
the  one  only  danger  that  has  ever  threatened  the  perpe- 
tuity of  the  Union,  or  of  our  own  liberties. 

I  think  it  is  extremely  important  that  they  shall 
decide,  and  rightly  decide,  that  question  before  entering 
upon  that  policy. 


W.    B.     AFFLECK.  123 


I  LOVE  Abraham  Lincoln  so  ardently,  that  I  scarcely 
dare  write  my  opinion  of  him.  His  obscure  parent- 
age, his  humble  birth,  his  lack  of  childhood's  joys,  his 
exalted  attainments,  his  peculiar  talents,  his  natural  gifts, 
his  sympathy  for  the  oppressed,  his  patriotism  for  his 
country,  his  loyalty  to  truth,  his  pure  life,  and  his  having 
had  all  these  excellencies  crowned  with  a  martyr's  death, 
renders  him  beyond  doubt,  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
men  that  ever  labored  to  make  goodness  triumphant,  and 
brotherly  charity  universal. 


SPRINGFIELD,  1881. 


i24  EXTRACT    FROM    MR,     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 

EXTRACT  FROM  MR.  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH, 

AT  QUINCY,  ILLINOIS,  OCTOBER  13,    1858. 

I  was  aware,  when  it  was  first  agreed  that  Judge 
Douglas  and  I  were  to  have  these  seven  joint  discussions, 
that  they  were  the  successive  acts  of  a  drama — perhaps  I 
should  say,  to  be  enacted  not  mearly  in  the  face  of  audi- 
ences like  this,  but  in  the  face  of  the  nation,  and  to  some 
extent,  by  my  relation  to  him,  and  not  from  anything  in 
myself,  in  the  face  of  the  world — and  I  am  anxious  that 
they  should  be  conducted  with  dignity  and  in  good 
temper,  which  would  be  befitting  the  vast  audiences 
before  which  it  was  conducted. 

I  was  not  entirely  sure  that  I  should  be  able  to 
hold  my  own  with  him,  but  I  at  least  had  the  purpose 
made  to  do  as  well  as  I  could  upon  him ;  and  now  I  say 
that  I  will  not  be  the  first  to  cry  "  hold."  I  think  it  orig- 
inated with  the  Judge,  and  when  he  quits,  I  probably 
will  But  I  shall  not  ask  any  favors  at  all.  He  asks  me, 
or  he  asks  the  audiences,  if  I  wish  to  push  this  matter  to 
the  point  of  personal  difficulty  ?  I  tell  him,  No.  He 
did  not  make  a  mistake,  in  one  of  his  early  speeches, 
when  he  called  me  an  amiable  man,  though  perhaps  he  did 
when  he  called  me  an  "intelligent"  man.  It  really  hurts 
me  very  much  to  suppose  that  I  have  wronged  anybody 
on  earth.  I  again  tell  him  No  !  I  very  much  prefer,  when 
this  canvass  shall  be  over,  however  it  may  result,  that  we 
at  least  part  without  any  bitter  recollections  of  personal 
difficulties. 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH.  125 

We  have  in  this  nation  this  element  of  domestic 
slavery  It  is  a  macter  of  absolute  certainty  that  it  is  a 
disturbing  element.  It  is  the  opinion  of  all  the  great 
men  who  have  expressed  an  opinion  upon  it,  that  it  is 
a  dangerous  element.  We  keep  up  a  controversy  in 
regard  to  it.  That  controversy  necessarily  springs  from 
difference  of  opinion,  and  if  we  can  learn  exactly — can 
reduce  to  the  lowest  elements — what  that  difference  of 
opinion  is,  we  perhaps  shall  be  better  prepared  for  discuss- 
ing the  different  system  of  policy  that  we  would  propose  * 
in  regard  to  that  disturbing  element.  I  suggest  that  the 
difference  of  opinion,  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  is  no 
other  than  the  difference  between  the  men  who  think 
slavery  a  wrong  and  those  who  do  not  think  it  wrong. 
We  think  it  is  a  wrong  not  confining  itself  merely  to  the 
persons  or  the  States  where  it  exists,  but  that  it  is  a  wrong 
in  its  tendency,  to  say  the  least,  that  extends  itself  to  the  ex- 
istence of  the  whole  nation.  Because  we  think  it  wrong 
we  propose  a  course  of  policy  that  shall  deal  with  it  as  a 
wrong.  We  deal  with  it  as  with  any  other  wrong,  in  so 
far  as  we  can  prevent  its  growing  any  larger,  and  so  deal 
with  it  that  in  the  run  of  time  there  may  be  some  promise 
of  an  end  to  it.  We  have  a  due  regard  to  the  actual 
presence  of  it  among  us  and  the  difficulties  of  getting  rid 
of  it  in  any  satisfactory  way,  and  all  the  constitutional 
obligations  thrown  about  it.  I  suppose  that  in  reference 
both  to  its  actual  existence  in  the  nation,  and  to  our  con- 
stitutional obligations,  we  have  no  right  at  all  to  disturb 
it  in  the  States  where  it  exists,  and  we  profess  that  we 
have  no  more  inclination  to  disturb  it  than  we  have  the 
right  to  do  it.  We  go  farther  than  that ;  we  don't  pro- 


126  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN ''S    SPEECH. 

pose  to  disturb  it  where,  in  one  instance,  we  think  the 
Constitution  would  permit  us.  We  think  the  constitution 
would  permit  us  to  disturb  it  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
Still,  we  do  not  propose  to  do  that,  unless  it  should  be  in 
terms  which  I  don't  suppose  the  nations  is  very  likely  soon 
to  agree  to — the  terms  of  making  the  emancipation  gradual 
and  compensating  the  unwilling  owners.  Where  we 
suppose  we  have  the  constitutional  right,  we  restrain  our- 
selves in  reference  to  the  actual  existence  of  the  institu- 
tion and  the  difficulties  thrown  about  it.  We  also  oppose 
it  as  an  evil  so  far  as  it  seeks  to  spread  itself.  We  in- 
sist on  the  policy  that  shall  restrict  it  to  its  present  limits. 
We  don't  suppose  that  in  doing  this  we  violate  anything 
due  to  the  actual  presence  of  the  institution,  or  anything 
due  to  the  constitutional  guaranties  thrown  around  it. 


W.   MERRITT.  127 


THERE  is  not,  to  my  mind,  outside  of  Divine  Writ, 
so  convincing  an  evidence  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  as  is  furnished  by  the  growth  and  development  of 
the  mind  and  character  of  this  greatest  of  American  Pres- 
idents to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  direction  and  control 
of  a  great  revolution,  on  the  successful  issue  of  which 
depended  the  happiness  of  one-fifth  of  the  world.  From 
a  poor  country  boy,  uneducated  and  untrained,  we  find 
him  advancing  through  the  grades  of  a  commonplace 
law  practice,  to  the  government  of  a  great  nation  in  one 
of  the  most  perplexing  political  epochs  that  history 
records,  controlling  and  directing  events  to  a  successful 
issue — to  the  most  successful  issue  possible,  as  retrospec- 
tion after  a  lapse  of  years  proves.  History  furnishes 
scarcely  a  parallel  to  the  character  of  this  greatest  of 
reformers.  The  love  of  power  has  produced  wise 
despots,  who  have  endured  a  life  of  earnest  labor,  full  of 
privations,  for  the  sake  of  innovation  and  improvement ; 
Icabots  have  lived  miserable  lives,  or  suffered  infamous 
deaths  for  an  idea  involving  improvement,  but  the 
motive  in  both  cases  is  rather  personal  than  general. 
The  rule  with  mankind  as  practical  in  politics  or  religion, 
is  conservation.  In  the  face  of  opposition  and  struggle, 
we  shrink  from  responsibilities,  and  content  ourselves 
with  contracting  the  sphere  of  intended  reforms,  to  our 
immediate  surroundings. 


128 


W.     MERRITT. 


As  his  career  differed  from  that  of  the  other  heroes  of 
history,  in  that  he  li*ed  and  strove  for  reforms  that 
would  benefit  mankind,  though  his  own  life  should  be 
the  price,  in  so  far  is  Abraham  Lincoln  the  greatest  of 
Reformers — the  noblest  of  Patriots — the  ablest  of  men. 


U.  S.  ARMY,   1882. 


CHARLES    DUDLEY     WARNER.  129 


A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  the  genius  of  common 
r~\.  sense.  In  his  daily  life  he  was  a  representative  of 
the  American  people,  and  probably  the  best  leader  we 
could  have  had  in  the  crisis  of  our  national  life.  He 
was  a  great  leader,  because  to  his  common  sense  was 
added  the  gift  of  imagination. 


.>-7 


HARTFORD,    1880. 
I 


I3o  SPEECH    AT    ALTON. 


SPEECH    AT    ALTON,    ILLINOIS,    OCTOBER 

15,   1858. 

On  this  subject  of  treating  slavery  as  a  wrong,  and 
limiting  its  spread,  let  me  say  a  word.  Has  anything 
ever  threatened  the  existence  of  this  Union  save  and  ex- 
cept this  very  institution  of  slavery  ?  What  is  it  that  we 
hold  most  dear  among  us  ?  Our  own  liberty  and  pros- 
perity. What  has  ever  threatened  our  liberty  and 
prosperity,  save  and  except  this  institution  of  slavery  ? 
If  this  is  true,  how  do  you  propose  to  improve  the  con- 
dition of  things  by  enlarging  slavery? — by  spreading  it 
out,  and  making  it  bigger  ?  You  may  have  a  wen  or 
cancer  upon  your  person,  and  not  be  able  to  cut  it  out 
lest  you  bleed  to  death  :  but  surely,  it  is  no  way  to  cure 
it,  to  ingraft  it  and  spread  it  over  your  whole  body — that 
is  no  proper  way  of  treating  what  you  regard  a  wrong. 
You  see,  this  peaceful  way  of  dealing  with  it  as  a  wrong 
— restricting  the  spread  of  it,  and  not  allowing  it  to  go 
into  new  countries  where  it  has  not  already  existed — 
that  is  the  peaceful  way,  the  old-fashioned  way,  the 
way  in  which  the  fathers  themselves  set  us  the  example. 

"Is  slavery  wrong?" 

That  is  the  real  issue.  That  is  the  issue  that  will 
continue  in  this  country,  when  these  poor  tongues  of 
Judge  Douglas  and  myself  shall  be  silent.  It  is  the 
eternal  struggle  between  these  two  principles — right  and 
wrong — throughout  the  world.  They  are  two  principles 


SPEECH    AT    ALTON.  131 

that  have  stood  face  to  face  from  the  beginning  of  time ; 
and  will  ever  continue  to  struggle.  The  one  is  the  com- 
mon right  of  humanity,  and  the  other,  the  divine  right  of 
kings.  It  is  the  same  principle  in  whatever  shape  it 
develops  itself.  It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says,  "You 
work,  and  toil,  and  earn  bread,  and  I'll  eat  it."  No 
matter  in  what  shapes  it  comes,  whether  from  the  mouth 
of  a  king,  who  seeks  to  bestride  the  people  of  his  own 
nation,  and  live  by  the  fruit  of  their  labor,  or  from  one 
race  of  men  as  an  apology  for  enslaving  another  race, 
it  is  the  same  tyrannical  principle. 

I  do  not  claim,  gentlemen,  to  be  unselfish ;  I  do  not 
pretend  that  I  would  not  like  to  go  to  the  United  States 
Senate ;  I  make  no  such  hypocritical  pretense ;  but  I  do 
say  to  you,  that  in  this  mighty  issue  it  is  nothing  to  the 
mass  of  the  people  of  the  nation,  whether  or  not  Judge 
Douglas  or  myself  shall  ever  be  heard  of  after  this  night ; 
it  may  be  a  trifle  to  either  of  us,  but  in  connection  with 
this  mighty  question,  upon  which  hangs  the  destinies  of 
the  nation,  perhaps,  it  is  absolutely  nothing. 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT  FROM  MR.  LINCOLN'S  SPEECH 

AT  COLUMBUS,  OHIO,  SEPTEMBER,    1859. 

Public  opinion  in  this  countrjf  is  everything.  In  a 
nation  like  ours  this  popular  sovereignty  and  squatter 
Sovereignty  have  already  wrought  a  change  in  the  public 
mind  to  the  extent  I  have  stated.  There  is  no  man  in 
this  crowd  who  can  contradict  it.  Now,  if  you  are  op- 
posed to  slavery  honestly,  as  much  as  anybody,  I  ask  you 
to  note  that  fact,  and  the  like  of  which  is  to  follow,  to  be 
plastered  on,  layer  after  layer,  until  very  soon  you  are 
prepared  to  deal  with  the  negro  everywhere  as  with  the 
brute.  If  public  sentiment  has  not  been  debauched  al- 
ready to  this  point,  a  new  turn  of  the  screw  in  that  direc- 
tion is  all  that  is  wanting ;  and  this  is  constantly  being 
done  by  the  teachers  of  this  insidious  popular  sovereignty. 
You  need  but  one  or  two  turns  further  until  your  minds, 
now  ripening  under  these  teachings,  will  be  ready  for  all 
these  things,  and  you  will  receive  and  support  or  submit 
to,  the  slave  trade,  revived  with  all  its  horrors,  a  slave 
code  enforced  in  our  territories,  and  a  new  Dred  Scott 
decision  to  bring  slavery  up  into  the  very  heart  of  the 
free  North.  This,  I  must  say,  is  but  carrying  out  those 
words  prophetically  spoken  by  Mr.  Clay,  many,  many 
years  ago — I  believe  more  than  thirty  years — when  he 
told  his  audience  that  if  they  would  repress  all  tenden- 
cies to  liberty  and  ultimate  emancipation,  they  must  go 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH.  133 


back  to  the  era  of  our  independence  and  muzzle  the  cannon 
which  thundered  its  annual  joyous  return  on  the  Fourth 
of  July;  they  must  blow  out  the  moral  lights  around  us; 
they  must  penetrate  the  human  soul  and  eradicate  the 
love  of  liberty  ;  but  until  they  did  these  things,  and  others 
eloquently  enumerated  by -him,  they  could  not  repress  al) 
tendencies  to  ultimate  emancipation.  I  ask  attention  to 
the  fact  that  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  these  popular  sov- 
ereigns are  at  this  work  ;  blowing  out  the  moral  lights 
around  us  ;  teaching  that  the  negro  is  no  longer  a  man, 
but  a  brute  ;  that  the  Declaration  has  nothing  to  do  with 
him ;  that  he  ranks  with  the  crocodile  and  the  reptile  ; 
that  man  with  body  and  soul,  is  a  matter  of  dollars  and 
cents. 


134  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH 

AT   CINCINNATI,    OHIO,    SEPTEMBER,    1859. 

It  has  occurred  to  me  here,  to-night,  that  if  I  ever 
do  shoot  over  the  line,  at  the  people  on  the  other  side  of 
the  line,  into  a  slave  State,  and  purpose  to  do  so,  keeping 
my  skin  safe,  that  I  have  now  about  the  best  chance  I 
shall  ever  have.  I  should  not  wonder  that  there  are 
some  Kentuckians  about  this  audience ;  we  are  close  to 
Kentucky ;  and  whether  that  be  so  or  not,  we  are  on  ele- 
vated ground,  and  by  speaking  distinctly,  I  should  not 
wonder  if  some  of  the  Kentuckians  would  hear  me  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river.  For  that  reason,  I  propose  to 
address  a  portion  of  what  I  have  to  say,  to  the  Kentuck- 
ians. 

I  say,  then,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  Kentuckians, 
that  I  am  what  they  call,  as  I  understand  it,  a  "  Black 
Republican."  I  think  slavery  is  wrong,  morally  and 
politically.  I  desire  that  it  should  be  no  further  spread 
in  these  United  States,  and  I  should  not  object,  if  it 
should  gradually  terminate  in  the  whole  Union.  While 
I  say  this  for  myse1^  I  say  to  you,  Kentuckians,  that  I 
understand  you  differ  radically  with  me  upon  this  propo- 
sition ;  that  you  believe  slavery  is  a  good  thing ;  that 
slavery  is  right ;  that  it  ought  to  be  extended  and  perpet- 
uated in  this  Union.  Now,  there  being  this  broad  differ- 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH.  135 

ence  between  us,  I  do  not  pretend,  in  addressing  myself 
to  you,  Kentuckians,  to  attempt  proselyting  you  ;  that 
would  be  a  vain  effort.  I  do  not  enter  upon  it.  I 
will  tell  you,  so  far  as  I  am  authorized  to  speak  for  the 
opposition,  what  we  mean  to  do  with  you.  We  mean  to 
treat  you,  as  near  as  we  possibly  can,  as  Washington, 
Jefferson,  and  Madison  treated  you.  We  mean  to  leave 
you  alone,  and  in  no  way  to  interfere  with  your  institu- 
tion ;  to  abide  by  all  and  every  compromise  of  the 
Constitution,  and,  in  a  word,  coming  back  to  the  original 
proposition,  to  treat  you,  so  far  as  degenerated  men  (if 
we  have  degenerated)  may,  according  to  the  examples  of 
those  noble  fathers — Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madi- 
son. We  mean  to  remember  that  you  are  as  good  as  we  ; 
that  there  is  no  difference  between  us,  other  than  the 
difference  of  circumstances.  We  mean  to  recognize  and 
bear  in  mind  always,  that  you  have  as  good  hearts  in 
your  bosoms  as  other  people,  or  as  we  claim  to  have, 
and  treat  you  accordingly.  We  mean  to  marry  your 
girls,  when  we  have  a  chance — the  white  ones,  I  mean — 
and  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  I  once  did  have 
a  chance  in  that  way. 

I  have  told  you  what  we  mean  to  do.  I  want  to 
know,  now,  when  that  thing  takes  place,  what  you  mean 
to  do.  I  often  hear  it  intimated  that  you  mean  to  divide 
the  Union  whenever  a  Republican,  or  anything  like  it, 
is  elected  President  of  the  United  States.  If  that  is  so, 
I  want  to  know  what  you  are  going  to  do  with  your  half 
of  it  ?  Are  you  going  to  split  the  Ohio  down  through, 
and  push  your  half  off  a  piece  ?  Or  are  you  going  to 
keep  it  right  alongside  of  us  outrageous  fellows  ?  Or 


I36  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 

are  you  going  to  build  up  a  wall  some  way,  between  your 
country  and  ours,  by  which  that  movable  property  of 
yours  can't  come  over  here  any  more,  to  the  danger  of 
your  losing  it  ?  Do  you  think  you  can  better  yourselves 
on  that  subject,  by  leaving  us  here,  under  no  obligation 
whatever  to  return  those  specimens  of  your  movable 
property  that  come  hither?  You  have  divided  the 
Union,  because  we  would  not  do  right  with  you,  as  you 
think,  upon  that  subject ;  when  we  cease  to  be  under 
obligations  to  do  anything  for  you,  how  much  better  off 
do  you  think  you  will  be  ?  Will  you  make  war  upon  us, 
and  kill  us  all  ?  Why,  gentlemen,  I  think  you  are  as  gal- 
lant and  as  brave  men  as  live ;  that  you  can  fight  as 
bravely  in  a  good  cause,  man  for  man,  as  any  other  peo- 
ple living ;  that  you  have  shown  yourselves  capable  of 
this,  upon  various  occasions ;  but,  man  for  man,  you  are 
not  better  than  we  are,  and  there  are  not  so  many  of 
you  as  there  are  of  us.  You  will  never  make  much  of  a 
hand  at  whipping  us.  If  we  were  fewer  in  numbers  than 
you,  I  think  that  you  could  whip  us ;  if  we  were  equal, 
it  would  likely  be  a  drawn  battle ;  but  being  inferior  in 
numbers,  you  will  make  nothing  by  attempting  to  master 
us. 


LOT    M.    MORRILL.  137 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  with  George  Washington, 
jT\.  will  stand  out  in  the  pages  of  American  history  in 
exalted  pre-eminence.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  suited  to  the 
epoch  which  rightly  anticipated  his  advent  to  the  Presi- 
dency ;  the  quality  of  the  man  was  the  equivalent  of  the 
perils  of  the  Chief  Magistrate.  Throughout  his  career, 
he  displayed  a  character  of  perfect  integrity,  sincerity, 
undeviating  rectitude  and  courage,  while  he  exhibited, 
in  rare  combination,  wisdom,  gentleness  and  conciliation. 
His  "firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gave  him  to  see," 
was,  to  him,  faith,  courage,  patience  and  boundless  endur 
ance  in  the  cause  of  the  right  —  to  the  American  people, 
nationality  restored,  liberty  and  union  vindicated,  the 
dark  stain  of  slavery  erased,  and  free  institutions  pre- 
served. 


AUGUSTA,  1880. 


138  EXTRACT    FROM    MR.     LINCOLN'S    SPEECH. 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    LINCOLN'S    SPEECH 

AT    JONESBORO,     ILL.,    SEPTEMBER    15,    1858. 

In  so  far  as  Judge  Douglas  has  insisted  that  all  the 
States  have  the  right  to  do  exactly  as  they  please  about 
all  their  domestic  relations,  including  that  of  slavery,  I 
agree  entirely  with  him.  I  hold  myself  under  constitu- 
tional obligations  to  allow  the  people  in  all  the  states, 
without  interference,  direct  or  indirect,  to  do  exactly  as 
they  please ;  and  I  deny  that  I  have  any  inclination  to 
interfere  with  them,  even  if  there  were  no  such  constitu- 
tional obligation. 

I  say,  in  the  way  our  fathers  originally  left  the  Slav- 
ery question,  the  institution  was  in  the  course  of  ulti- 
mate extinction,  and  the  public  mind  rested  in  the 
belief  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction. 
I  say,  when  this  Government  was  first  established,  it  was 
the  policy  of  its  founders  to  prohibit  the  spread  of  slavery 
into  the  new  Territories  of  the  United  States,  where 
it  had  not  existed.  All  I  have  asked,  or  desired,  any- 
where, is  that  it  should  be  placed  back  again  upon 
the  basis  that  the  fathers  of  our  govern-ment  origin- 
ally placed  it  upon.  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  would 
become  extinct,  for  all  time  to  come,  if  we  but  re- 
adopted  the  policy  of  the  fathers  by  restricting  it  to  the 
limits  it  has  already  covered — restricting  it  from  the  new 
Territories. 


ROBERT    ALLYN.  139 


IN  the  Autumn  of  1859,  I  was  residing  in  Cincin- 
nati, and  heard  the  late  Stephen  A.  Douglas  speak 
twice  in  that  city  or  vicinity,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  speak 
once,  from  the  steps  of  the  Burnet  House,  I  believe.  I 
was  impressed  greatly  with  the  contrast  between  them. 
Mr.  Douglas  was  aggressive,  confident  in  himself,  and 
evidently  bent  on  crushing  his  opponents.  Mr.  Lincoln 
seemed  at  first  too  modest  and  undemonstrative.  But 
as  he  went  on  and  forgot  himself,  and  apparently  his 
party,  in  his  interest  in  grand  principles,  he  rose  in  dig- 
nity, till  he  seemed  more  the  embodiment  of  Justice, 
Freedom  and  Love  of  Humanity,  than  a  mere  man.  He 
was  lost  in  the  grandeur  of  the  cause,  and  stood  un- 
selfishly for  the  rights  of  all  men,  in  all  ages.  And  I 
have  often  .thought  that  this  idea  of  him  then,  gathered 
by  me,  best  expresses  the  essence  of  his  character,  and 
inspired  disregard  of  personal  interests,  and  a  complete 
self-surrender  of  everything  to  the  welfare  of  all  men, 
especially  the  humblest 


CARBONDALE,  1880. 


140  ADDRESS    AT    COOPER    INSTITUTE. 


EXTRACT  FROM  MR.  LINCOLN'S  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  AT  COOPER  INSTITUTE,  FEBRUARY  2/,    i860. 

Let  all  who  believe  that  "Our  fathers,  who  framed 
the  Government  under  which  we  live,  understood  this 
question  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than  we  do  now," 
speak  as  they  spoke,  and  act  as  they  acted  upon  it.  This 
is  all  Republicans  ask — all  Republicans  desire — in  relation 
to  slavery.  As  those  fathers  marked  it,  so  let  it  be  again 
marked,  as  an  evil  not  to  be  extended,  but  to  be  tolerated 
and  protected  only  because  of  and  so  far  as  its  actual 
presence  among  us  makes  that  toleration  and  protection 
a  necessity.  Let  all  the  guaranties  those  fathers  gave  it 
be,  not  grudgingly,  but  fully  and  fairly  maintained. 

It  is  exceedingly  desirable  that  all  parts  of  this  great 
Confederacy  shall  be  at  peace,  and  in  harmony,  one  with 
another.  Even  though  much  provoked,  let  us  do  noth- 
ing through  passion  and  ill  temper.  Even  though  the 
Southern  people  will  not  so  much  as  listen  to  us,  let  us 
calmly  consider  their  demands,  and  yield  to  them  if,  in 
our  deliberate  view  of  our  duty,  we  possibly  can. 

Wrong  as  we  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet  afford  to 
let  it  alone  where  it  is,  because  that  much  is  due  to  the 
necessity  arising  from  its  actual  presence  in  the  nation ; 
but  can  we,  while  our  votes  will  prevent  it,  allow  it  to 
spread  into  the  National  Territories,  and  to  overrun  us 
here  in  these  Free  States  ?  If  our  sense  of  duty  forbids 


ADDRESS    AT    COOPER     INSTITUTE.  141 

this,  then  let  us  stand  by  our  duty,  fearlessly  and  effectively. 
Let  us  be  diverted  by  none  of  those  sophistical  contriv- 
ances wherewith  we  are  so  industriously  plied  and  bela- 
bored— contrivances  such  as  groping  for  some  middle 
ground  between  the  right  and  the  wrong,  vain  as  the 
search  for  a  man  who  should  be  neither  a  living  man  nor 
a  dead  man — such  as  a  policy  of  "  don't  care  "  on  a  ques- 
tion about  which  all  true  men  do  care — such  as  Union 
appeals  beseeching  true  Union  men  to  yield  to  Disunion- 
ists  reversing  the  divine  rule,  and  calling,  not  the  sinners, 
but  the  righteous  to  repentance — such  as  invocations  to 
Washington,  imploring  men  to  unsay  what  Washington 
said,  and  undo  what  Washington  did.  Neither  let  us  be 
slandered  from  our  duty  by  false  accusations  against  us, 
nor  frightened  from  it  by  menaces  of  destruction  to  the 
Government  nor  dungeons  to  ourselves.  Let  us  have 

o 

faith,  that  right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us,  to 
the  end,  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it. 


ADDRESS    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 


ADDRESS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

TO     THE     CITIZENS     OF     SPRINGFIELD,     ON   HIS     DEPARTURE 
FOR  WASHINGTON,    FEBRUARY    IITH,   1 86 1; 

My  Friends: 

No .  one,  not  in  my  position,  can  appreciate  the  sad- 
ness I  feel  at  this  parting;  To  this  people  I  owe  all  that 
I  am.  Here  I  have  lived  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury ;  here  my  children  were  born,  and  here  one  of  them 
lies  buried.  I  know  not  how  soon  I  shall  see  you  again. 
A  duty  devolves  upon  me  which  is,  perhaps,  greater 
than  that  which  has  devolved  upon  any  other  man  since 
the  days  of  Washington.  He  never  would  have  suc- 
ceeded except  by  the  aid  of  Divine  Providence,  upon 
which  he  at  all  times  relied.  I  feel  that  I  cannot  suc- 
ceed without  the  same  Divine  aid  which  sustained  him, 
and  on  the  same  Almighty  Being  I  place  my  reliance  for 
support ;  and  I  hope  you,  my  friends,  will  all  pray  that  I 
may  receive  that  Divine  assistance,  without  which  I  can- 
not succeed,  but  with  which  success  is  certain.  Again  I 
bid  you  an  affectionate  farewelL 


"",.  rfy' .      .  •• '^ 


JOSHUA    F.     SPEED.  143 


IN  1834,  I  was  a  citizen  of  Springfield,  Sangamon  Co., 
Illinois,  Mr.  Lincoln  lived  in  the  country,  fourteen 
miles  from  the  town.  He  was  a  laborer,  and  a  deputy 
surveyor,  and  at  the  same  time  a  member  of  the  legislature, 
elected  the  year  previous.  In  1835,  he.  was  a  candidate 
for  re-election..  I  had  not  seen  him  for  the  first  six 
months  of  my  residence  there,  but  had  heard  him  spoken 
of  as  a  man  of  wonderful  ability  on  the  stump.  He  was 
a  long,  gawky,  ugly,  shapeless  man.  He  had  never  spok- 
en, as  far  as  I  know  of,  at  the  county  seat,  during  his 
first  candidacy.  The  second  time  he  was  a  candidate,  he 
had  already  made,,  in  the  legislature,  considerable  repu- 
tation ;  and  on  his  renomination  to  the  legislature,  adver- 
tised to  meet  his  opponents,  and  speak  in  Springfield,  on 
a  given  day.  I  believe  that  that  was  the  first  public 
speech  he  ever  made  at  the  court-house.  He  was  never 
ashamed,  so  far  as  I  know,  to  admit  his  ignorance  uqon 
any  subject,,  or  of  the  meaning  of  any  word,  no  matter 
how  ridiculous  it  might  make  him  appear.  As  he  was 
riding  into  town  the  evening  before  the  speech,  he 
passed  the  handsomest  house  in  the  village,  which  had 
just  been  built  by  Geo.  Farquer;  upon  it  he  had  placed 
a  lightning-rod,  the  only  one  in  the  town  or  county. 
Some  ten  or  twelve  young  men  were  riding  with 
Lincoln.  He  asked  them  what  that  rod  was  for.  They 
told  him  it  was  to  keep  off  the  lightning.  "  How  does  it 
do  it  ? "  he  asked ;  none  of  them  could  telL  He  rode  into 


144  JOSHUA    F.     SPEED. 

town,  bought  a  book  on  the  properties  of  lightning,  and 
before  morning  knew  all  about  it.  When  he  was  igno- 
rant on  any  subject,  he  addressed  himself  to  the  task  of 
being  ignorant  no  longer.  On  this  occasion,  a  large 
number  of  citizens  came  from  a  distance  to  hear  him 
speak.  He  had  very  able  opponents.  I  stood  near  him 
and  heard  the  speech.  I  was  fresh  from  Kentucky 
then,  and  had  heard  most  of  her  great  orators.  It  struck 
me  then,  as  it  seems  to  me  now,  that  I  never  heard  a 
more  effective  speaker.  All  the  party  weapons  of 
offense  and  defense  seemed  to  be  entirely  under  his 
control.  The  large  crowd  seemed  to  be  swayed  by  him 
as  he  pleased.  He  was  a  Whig,  and  quite  a  number  of 
candidates  were  associated  with  him  on  the  Whig  ticket ; 
seven,  I  think,  in  number ;  there  were  seven  Democrats 
opposed  to  them.  The  debate  was  a  joint  one,  and  Lin- 
coln was  appointed  to  close  it,  which  he  did  as  I  have 
heretofore  described,  in  a  most  masterly  style.  The 
people  commenced  leaving  the  court-house,  when  Geo. 
Farquer,  a  man  of  much  celebrity  in  the  State,  rose,  and 
asked  the  people  to  hear  him.  He  was  not  a  candidate, 
but  was  a  man  of  talents,  and  of  great  State  notoriety. 
as  a  speaker.  He  commenced  his  speech  by  turning 
to  Lincoln  and  saying,  "  This  young  man  will  have 
to  be  taken  down ;  and  I  am  truly  sorry  that  the 
task  devolves  upon  me."  He  then  proceeded  in  a  vein 
of  irony,  sarcasm,  and  wit,  to  ridicule  Lincoln  in  everyway 
that  he  could.  Lincoln  stood,  not  more  than  ten  feet 
from  him,  with  folded  arms,  and  an  eye  flashing  fire,  and 
listened  attentively  to  him,  without  ever  interrupting  him 
Lincoln  then  took  the  stand  for  reply.  He  was  pale  and 


JOSHUA    F.     SPEED.  J45 

his  spirits  seemed  deeply  moved.  His  opponent  was 
one  worthy  of  his  steel.  He  answered  him  fully  and 
completely.  The  conclusion  of  his  speech  I  remember 
even  now,  so  deep  an  impression  did  it  make  on  me  then. 
He  said,  "The  gentleman  commenced  his  speech  by 
saying  that  this  young  man  would  have  to  be  taken  down, 
alluding  to  me ;  I  am  not  so  young  in  years  as  I  am  in 
the  tricks  and  trades  of  a  politician  ;  but  live  long,  or  die 
young,  I  would  rather  die  now,  than,  like  the  gentleman, 
change  my  politics,  and  simultaneous  with  the  change  re- 
ceive an  office  worth  three  thousand  dollars  per  year, 
and  then  have  to  erect  a  lightning-rod  over  my  house,  to 
protect  a  guilty  conscience  from  an  offended  God."  He 
used  the  lightning-rod  against  Farquer  as  he  did  every- 
thing in  after  life. 

In  1837,  after  his  return  from  the  legislature,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln obtained  a  license  to  practice  law.  He  lived  four- 
teen miles  in  the  country,  and  had  ridden  into  town  on  a 
borrowed  horse,  with  no  earthly  goods  but  a  pair  of  saddle- 
bags, two  or  three  law  books,  and  some  clothing  which  he 
had  in  the  saddle-bags.  He  took  an  office,  and  engaged 
from  the  only  cabinet-maker  then  in  the  village,  a  single 
bedstead.  He  came  into  my  store  (I  was  a  merchant 
then),  set  his  saddle-bags  on  the  counter  and  asked  me 
"  what  the  furniture  for  a  single  bedstead  would  cost."  I 
took  slate  and  pencil  and  made  calculation,  and  found  the 
sum  for  furniture  complete  would  amount  to  seventeen 
dollars  in  all.  Said  he,  "  It  is  probably  cheap  enough  :  but 
I  want  to  say  that,  cheap  as  it  is,  I  have  not  the  money 
to  pay.  But  if  you  will  credit  me  until  Christmas,  and  my 

experiment  here  as  a  lawyer  is  a  success,  I  will  pay  you  then. 
10 


146  JOSHUA     F.     SPEED. 

If  I  fail  in  that  I  will  probably  never  be  able  to  pay  you  at 
all."  The  tone  of  his  voice  was  so  melancholy  that  I  felt 
for  him.  I  looked  up  at  him,  and  I  thought  then,  as  I 
think  now,  that  I  never  saw  so  gloomy  and  melancholy  a 
face.  I  said  to  him,  "  The  contraction  of  so  small  a 
debt  seems  to  affect  you  so  deeply,  I  think  I  can  suggest 
a  plan  by  which  you  will  be  able,  to  attain  your  end, 
without  incurring  any  debt.  I  have  a  very  large  room, 
and  a  very  large  double-bed  in  it ;  which  you  are  per- 
fectly welcome  to  share  with  me  if  you  choose." 
"Where  is  your  room?"  asked  he.  "  Up  stairs,"  said  I, 
pointing  to  the  stairs  leading  from  the  store  to  my  room. 
Without  saying  a  word,  he  took  his  saddle-bags  on  his 
arm,  went  up  stairs,  set  them  down  on  the  floor,  came 
down  again,  and  with  a  face  beaming  with  pleasure  and 
smiles,  exclaimed:  "Well,  Speed,  I'm  moved."  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  then  twenty-seven  years  old,  almost  without 
friends,  and  with  no  property  except  the  saddle-bags 
with  the  clothes  mentioned,  within.  Now,  for  me  to 
have  lived  to  see  such  a  man  rise  from  point  to  point,  and 
from  place  to  place,  filling  all  the  places  to  which  he  was 
called  with  honor  and  distinction,  until  he  reached  the 
presidency,  filling  the  presidential  chair  in  the  most  trying 
time  that  any  ruler  ever  had,  seems  to  me  more  like 
fiction  than  fact.  None  but  a  genius  like  his  could  have 
accomplished  so  much ;  and  none  but  a  government  like 
ours  could  produce  such  a  man.  It  gave  the  young 
eagle  scope  for  his  wings ;  he  tried  it,  and  soared  to  the 
top! 

In  1839  Mr.  Lincoln,  being  then  a  lawyer  in  full  prac- 
tice, attended  all  the  courts  adjacent  to  Springfield.     He 


JOSHUA     F.     SPEED.  147 

was  then  attending  court  at  Christiansburg,  about  thirty 
miles  distant  I  was  there  when  the  court  broke  up  ;  quite 
a  number  of  lawyers  were  coming  from  court  to  Spring- 
field. We  were  riding  along  a  country  road,  two  and 
two  together,  some  distance  apart,  Lincoln  and  Jno.  J. 
Hardin  being  behind  (Hardin  was  afterward  made 
colonel  and  was  killed  at  Buena  Vista).  We  were  pass- 
ing through  a  thicket  of  wild  plum  and  crab-apple  trees, 
where  we  stopped  to  water  our  horses.  After  waiting 
some  time  Hardin  came  up  and  we  asked  him  where  Lin- 
coln was.  "  Oh,"  said  he,  "when  I  saw  him  last"  (there  had 
been  a  severe  wind  storm)  "he  had  caught  two  little  birds 
in  his  hand,  which  the  wind  had  blown  from  their  nest, 
and  he  was  hunting  for  the  nest."  Hardin  left  him  be- 
fore he  found  it.  He  finally  found  the  nest,  and  placed 
the  birds,  to  use  his  own  words,  "  in  the  home  provider 
for  them  by  their  mother."  When  he  came  up  with  the 
party  they  laughed  at  him ;  said  he,  earnestly  :  "  I  could 
not  have  slept  to-night  if  I  had  not  given  those  two  little 
birds  to  their  mother." 

This  was  the  flower  that  bloomed  so  beautifully  in 
his  nature,  on  his  native  prairies.  He  never  lost  the 
nobility  of  his  nature,  nor  the  kindness  of  his  heart,  by 
being  removed  to  a  higher  sphere  of  action.  On  the 
contrary,  both  were  increased.  The  enlarged  sphere  of 
his  action  developed  the  natural  promptings  of  his  heart. 


V 

LOUISVILLE,  1882. 


i48  LETTER    OF    ACCEPTANCE. 


LETTER  OF  ACCEPTANCE. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  May  23,  1860. 
"  Hon.  Geo.  Ashmun, 

"  President  of  the.  Republican  National  Convention. 

"Sir — I  accept  the  nomination  tendered  me  by  the 
Convention  over  which  you  presided,  and  of  which  I  am 
formally  apprised  in  the  letter  of  yourself  and  others, 
acting  as  a  committee  of  the  Convention  foi  that  pur- 
pose. 

"  The  declaration  of  principles  and  sentiments  which 
accompanies  your  letter  meets  my  approval ;  and  it 
shall  be  my  care  not  to  violate  nor  disregard  it  in  any 
part. 

"  Imploring  the  assistance  of  Divine  Providence,  and 
with  due  regard  to  the  views  and  feelings  of  all  who 
were  represented  in  the  Convention  ;  to  the  rights  of  all 
States  and  Territories,  and  the  people  of  the  nation  ;  to 
the  inviolability  of  the  Constitution,  and  to  the  per- 
petual union,  harmony  and  prosperity  of  all,  I  am  most 
happy  to  co-operate  for  the  practical  success  of  the  prin- 
ciples declared  by  the  Convention. 

"  Your  obliged  friend  and  fellow-citizen, 


£.     O.    HAVEN.  149 


IN  times  of  great  trouble,  men  and  nations,  unless 
doomed  to  perish,  recognize  and  call  upon  God.  So 
did  this  nation  in  the  terrible  struggle  produced  by  slav- 
ery. It  now  seems  that  any  man,  however  highly 
endowed,  much  unlike  Abraham  Lincoln,  could  not  have 
so  well  filled  the  demand  as  President.  Certainly,  he  did 
meet  the  demand,  and  well.  To  God  be  all  the  glory ! 


SYRACUSE,  1880. 


SPEECH    AT    TOLEDO,     OHIO. 


SPEECH  AT  TOLEDO,  OHIO. 

I  am  leaving  you  on  an  errand  of  national  importance, 
attended,  as  you  are  aware,  with  considerable  difficulties. 
Let  us  believe,  as  some  poet  has  expressed  it,  "  Behind 
the  cloud  the  sun  is  shining  still."  I  bid  you  an  affec- 
tionate farewell. 


CHARLES    LANMAN.  15  j 


I  FULLY  concur  with  all  that  has  ever  been  uttered  — 
calculated  to  show  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  pure 
and  honest  man,  and  possessor  of  very  superior  abilities. 
Among  those  to  whom  I  applied  for  biographical 
facts,  while  preparing  the  first  edition  of  my  Dictionary 
of  Congress,  was  Mr.  Lincoln  ;  and  his  reply  was  so 
characteristic  of  the  man,  that  I  send  the  following  : 
"  Born  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky,  February  12,  1809  ; 
received  a  limited  education  ;  adopted  the  profession  of 
law  ;  was  captain  of  volunteers  in  the  Black  Hawk  war  ; 
was  post-master  of  a  small  village  ;  four  times  elected  to 
the  Illinois  Legislature,  and  a  Representative  in  Con- 
gress from  1847  to  1849."  The  several  letters  which  he 
wrote  to  me,  and  two  or  three  very  pleasant  interviews 
that  I  had  with  him,  can  never  be  forgotten  ;  but  what  I 
cherish  with  peculiar  pleasure,  is  the  fact  that  he  once 
suggested  my  appointment  as  Librarian  of  Congress  ; 
and  when,  through  a  distinguished  friend,  I  suggested 
that  Mr.  A.  R.  Spofford  was  an  applicant  for  the  place, 
and  better  fitted  for  it  than  myself,  the  manner  in  which 
he  commented  on  my  suggestion  was  exceedingly 
gratifying. 


WASHINGTON,  1882. 


152     SPEECH    DELIVERED    AT    INDIANAPOLIS. 


SPEECH     DELIVERED     AT     INDIANAPOLIS, 

INDIANA. 

In  all  trying  positions  in  which  I  shall  be  placed,  and, 
doubtless  I  shall  be  placed  in  many  such,  my  reliance  will 
be  placed  upon  you  and  the  people  of  the  United  States ; 
and  I  wish  you  to  remember,  now  and  forever,  that  it  is 
your  business,  and  not  mine  ;  that  if  the  Union  of  these 
States,  and  the  liberties  of  this  people  shall  be  lost,  it  is 
but  little  to  any  one  man  of  fifty-two  years  of  age,  but  a 
great  deal  to  the  thirty  millions  of  people  who  inhabit 
these  United  States,  and  to  their  posterity  in  all  coming 
time.  It  is  your  business  to  rise  up  and  preserve  the 
Union  and  liberty  for  yourselves,  and  not  for  me.  I 
desire  they  should  be  constitutionally  performed.  I,  as 
already  intimated,  am  but  an  accidental  instrument,  tem- 
porary, and  to  serve  but  for  a  limited  time,  and  I  appeal 
to  you  again  to  constantly  bear  in  mind  that  with  you, 
and  not  with  politicians,  not  with .  Presidents,  not  with 
office-seekers,  but  with  you,  is  the  question,  Shall  the 
Union  and  shall  the  liberties  of  this  country  be  pre- 
served to  the  latest  generations  ? 


£UFUS    BLANCHARD.  153 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN    AND    THE    CONVEN- 
TION OF  1860. 

NATIONS,  like  individuals,  have  turning-points  in 
their  lives.  The  United  States  has  passed 
through  one  of  them — her  first  crisis  since  she  be- 
came a  nation  by  the  adoption  of  a  constitution  in 
1789.  No  small  amount  of  eloquent  advocacy,  as  well 
as  charitable  compromise,  were  required  to  unite  the 
different  States  together  in  one  common  bond  in  that 
early  day,  even  though  the  glories  of  her  Revolution  were 
fresh  in  the  minds  of  all.  The  only  cause  of  this  re- 
luctance on  the  part  of  some  of  the  States  to  enter  into 
this  compact  grew  out  of  a  fear,  that  slavery  might  not 
.be  sustained  after  the  national  Union  of  the  States  had 
been  consummated.  And  it  is  not  improbable  that  some 
mental  reservation  existed 'as  to  the  binding  force  of  the 
constitution,  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  States  at  the 
time  of  signing  it.  When  this  union  of  all  the  States 
under  one  bond  was  accomplished  we  became,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world,  a  nation ;  and  our  patriotic  pride  and 
fidelity  to  a  common  interest  seemed  to  give  an  assurance 
of  perpetual  harmony.  This  kindred  feeling  was  not 
disturbed  till  slavery  had  assumed  rights,  which  were  con- 


154  RUFUS    BLANCHARD. 

sidered  hostile  to  the  honor  of  the  North,  and  dangerous 
to  the  best  interests  of  the  nation.  At  this  eventful 
epoch,  when  everybody  was  intent  on  his  calling,  loath 
to  turn  aside  from  his  daily  routine,  the  great  issue  was 
forced  upon  the  nation  in  no  equivocal  form  at  the  con- 
vention of  1860.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
presidential  conventions,  this  issue  completely  trans- 
cended all  others  ;  that  of  1856  having  been  somewhat 
vacillating.  A  suspense  now  hung  over  the  whole 
country.  Prophets  harangued  and  everybody  partook 
of  the  general  excitement.  When  the  convention  met  it 
was  observable  through  a  conviction  that  seemed  to  fill 
the  very  air,  that  a  new  order  of  things  was  at  hand  ;  that 
new  men  and  new  measures  would  soon  be  brought  to 
the  front  by  an  irresistible  influence  that  was  gathering 
force  like  the  whirlwind.  And  while  (as  is  always  the 
case  at  such  popular  councils),  noisy  and  thoughtless 
demonstrations,  like  the  froth  that  floats  on  deep  waters, 
were  uppermost  at  times,  yet  the  profound  convictions  of 
political  economists  transcended  them,  whenever  the 
true  issue  came  up  for  debate.  It  was  the  substance, 
not  the  shadow,  that  this  element  of  candor  demanded  ; 
it  asked  no  favors  through  a  reciprocity  of  interest,  but 
challenged  men  to  support  principles  according  to  their 
merits.  Political  prestige  weighed  nothing.  In  vain,  it 
had  oft  been  tried  to  bridge  over  the  chasm  ;  heroic 
treatment  was  demanded,  and  who  should  be  the  hero  to 
administer  it,  who  could  buffet  the  storm  of  indignation 
T  ready  to  burst  upon  the  head  of  him  who  accepted  the 
nomination  of  the  anti-slavery  party  ?  Who  could  step 
into  this  arena  impervious  to  the  corruption  of  partisans  ? 


RUFUS    BLANCHARD. 


'55 


Who  could  become  the  political  gladiator,  in  hand-to- 
hand  conflict  with  the  disciples  of  Calhoun,  and  the 
neophytes  of  the  oligarchy  of  which  he  was  father  ? 
Who  could  become  the  animated  target  at  whose  feet  the 
shafts  of  malice  should  fall  harmless  ?  Who  could  be 
compromising  without  a  letting  down  of  principles? 
Who  had  firmness  without  arrogance,  eloquence  without 
pretension,  charity  without  cupidity  ?  Who  had  the  virtues 
of  the  statesman  without  the  vices  of  the  partisan  ?  He 
who  had  seen  every  phase  of  American  life,  and  shared 
its  wants,  and  felt  its  anxieties,  and  been  taught  in  its 
school  ;  and  whose  spotless  record  now  beckoned  to  the 
lovers  of  justice  to  follow  whither  he  might  lead. 

Abraham  Lincoln.  He  was  nominated,  elected  once, 
and  again.  His  services  wrung  from  the  reluctant  lips  of 
his  adversaries  praise  that  they  dared  not  refuse.  The 
stickler  for  "  blue  blood  "  stood  aghast,  before  the  charm 
of  his  words — simple  and  potent,  and  fortified  by  the 
force  of  events ;  and  last  of  all,  the  autocrats  of  the 
world  obsequiously  bowed  before  the  bier  which  held  the 
genius  of  America — a  corpse,  around  which  a  halo  of 
glory  shone  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  Other 
rulers  of  nations  had  been  assassinated,  but  none  before 
had  won  such  acknowledgments  of  that  kind  of  grandeur 
which  died  in  him  to  live  again.  Our  country,  in  her 
youthful  fecundity,  stimulated  into  activity  by  the  vast- 
ness  of  her  wild  domain,  through  which  genius  became 
the  handmaiden  of  creative  power,  produced  a  Lincoln. 
It  is  not  essential  that  heraldry  or  even  conventionalism 
should  accompany  merit,  it  is  a  positive  principle.  All 
the  more  lustrous  if  unshackled  with  forms.  Lincoln 


156 


£UFUS    BLANCHARD. 


was  its  simple  model — the  child  of  our  training  and 
own  maturity.  He  became  our  father,  and  his  tomb  is 
our  shrine. 


WHEATON,  1882. 


/.     T.     TROWBRIDGE. 


157 


LINCOLN. 

HEROIC  soul,  in  homely  garb  half  hid, 
Sincere,  sagacious,  melancholy,  quaint ; 
What  he  endured,  no  less  than  what  he  did, 

Has  reared  his  monument,  and  crowned  him  saint. 


ARLINGTON,  1880. 


i53  SPEECH. 


SPEECH 

TO   THE    MEMBERS   OF   THE    LEGISLATURE   OF   INDIANA    WHO 
WAITED    UPON    HIM    AT    HIS   HOTEL. 

"  Solomon  says  there  is  '  a  time  to  keep  silence,'  and 
when  men  wrangle  by  the  mouth  with  no  certainty  that 
they  mean  the  same  thing,  while  using  the  same  word, 
it  perhaps  were  as  well  if  they  would  keep  silence." 

"  The  words  '  coercion  '  and  '  invasion '  are  much  used 
in  these  days,  and  often  with  some  temper  and  hot  blood. 
Let  us  make  sure,  if  we  can,  that  we  do  not  misunder- 
stand the  meaning  of  those  who  use  them.  Let  us  get 
the  exact  definitions  of  these  words,  not  from  dictiona- 
ries, but  from  the  men  themselves,  who  certainly  depre- 
cate the  things  they  would  represent  by  the  use  of  the 
word.  What  then,  is  '  coercion  ?  What  is  '  invasion  '? 
Would  the  marching  of  an  army  into  South  Carolina, 
without  the  consent  of  her  people,  and  with  hostile  intent 
towards  them,  be  invasion  ?  I  certainly  think  it  would, 
and  it  would  be  'coercion'  also  if  South  Carolinians 
were  forced  to  submit.  But  if  the  United  States  should 
merely  hold  and  retake  its  own  forts  and  other  property, 
and  collect  the  duties  on  foreign  importations,  or  even 
withhold  the  mails  from  places  where  they  were  habitu- 
ally violated,  would  any  or  all  these  things  be  '  invasion ' 
or  'coercion?  Do  our  professed  lovers  of  the  Union, 
but  who  spitefully  resolve  that  they  will  resist  coercion 


SPEECH.  159 

and  invasion,  understand  that  such  things  as  these  on  the 
part  of  the  United  States  would  be  coercion  or  invasion 
of  a  State  ?  If  so,  their  idea  of  means  to  preserve  the 
object  of  their  affection  would  seem  exceedingly  thin  and 
airy.  If  sick,  the  little  pills  of  the  homoeopathists  would 
be  much  too  large  for  it  to  swallow.  In  their  view,  the 
Union,  as  a  family  relation,  would  seem  to  be  no  regu- 
lar marriage,  but  a  sort  of  '  free  love '  arrangement,  to  be 
maintained  only  on  '  passional  attraction.'  By  the  way,  in 
what  consists  the  special  sacredness  of  a  State  ?  I 
speak  not  of  the  position  assigned  to  a  State  in  the 
Union  by  the  Constitution  ;  for  that,  by  the  bond,  we  all 
recognize.  That  position,  however,  a  State  cannot  carry 
out  of  the  Union  with  it.  I  speak  of  that  assumed 
primary  right  of  a  State  to  rule  all  which  is  less  than  it- 
self, and  ruin  all  which  is  larger  than  itself.  If  a  State 
and  a  county,  in  a  given  case,  should  be  equal  in  extent 
of  territory,  and  equal  in  number  of  inhabitants — in  what, 
as  a  matter  of  principle,  is  the  State  better  than  a 
county  ?  Would  an  exchange  of  names  be  an  exchange 
of  rights  upon  principle  ?  On  what  rightful  principle 
may  a  State,  being  not  more  than  one-fiftieth  part  of  the 
nation  in  soil  and  population,  break  up  the  nation,  and 
then  coerce  a  proportionally  larger  subdivision  of  itself, 
in  the  most  arbitrary  way  ?  What  mysterious  right  to 
play  tyrant  is  conferred  on  a  district  of  country,  with  its 
people,  by  merely  calling  it  a  State  ?  I  am  not  asserting 
anything ;  I  am  merely  asking  questions  for  you  to  con- 
sider." 


i6o  SPEECH    AT    CINCINNATI,     OHIO. 


SPEECH  AT  CINCINNATI,  OHIO. 

I  have  spoken  but  once  before  this  in  Cincinnati, 
1  hat  was  a  year  previous  to  the  late  Presidential  election. 
On  that  occasion,  in  a  playful  manner,  but  with  sincere 
words,  I  addressed  much  of  what  I  said  to  the  Ken- 
tuckians.  We  mean  to  treat  you  as  near  as  we  possibly 
can,  as  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison  treated  you. 
We  mean  to  leave  you  alone,  and  in  no  way  to  interfere 
with  your  institution,  and,  in  a  word,  coming  back  to  the 
original  proposition,  to  treat  you,  so  far  as  degenerated 
men  (if  we  have  degenerated)  may,  according  to  the 
examples  of  those  noble  fathers — Washington,  Jefferson, 
and  Madison.  We  mean  to  remember  that  you  are  as 
good  as  we  ;  that  there  is  no  difference  between  us  other 
than  the  difference  of  circumstances.  We  mean  to  rec- 
ognize and  bear  in  mind  always  that  you  have  as  good 
hearts  in  your  bosoms  as  other  people,  or  as  we  claim  to 
have,  and  treat  you  accordingly. 

Fellow-citizens  of  Kentucky !  friends !  brethren,  may 
I  call  you  in  my  new  position  ?  I  see  no  occasion,  and  feel 
no  inclination  to  retract  a  word  of  this.  If  it  shall  not 
be  made  good,  be  assured  the  fault  shall  not  be  mine. 


O.    B.    FROTH1NGHAM. 


161 


TOO  much  cannot  be  done  to  preserve  the  memory 
and  deepen  the  moral  impression  of  a  man  like 
Mr.  Lincoln.  So  humble,  simple,  disinterested,  imper- 
sonal, the  peer  of  Washington.  Even  as  idealized,  the 
superior  of  any  other  statesman  the  country  has  pro- 
duced. 


BOSTON,   1882. 
11 


i6a  TO     THE    OHIO    SENATE. 


TO  THE  OHIO  STATE. 

It  is  true,  as  has  been  said  by  the  President  of  the 
Senate,  that  very  great  responsibility  rests  upon  me  in 
the  position  to  which  the  votes  of  the  American  people 
have  called  me.  I  am  deeply  sensible  of  that  weighty 
responsibility.  I  cannot  but  know,  what  you  all  know, 
that  without  a  name,  perhaps  without  a  reason  why  I 
should  have  a  name,  there  has  fallen  upon  me  a  task  such 
as  did  not  rest  upon  the  "  Father  of  his  Country ;"  and 
so  feeling,  I  cannot  but  turn,  then,  and  look  to  the 
American  people,  and  to  that  God  who  has  never  forsaken 
them. 


/.     W.    FORNEY. 


163 


I 


AM  sure,  as  millions  have  said,  that  take  him  for  all 
in  all,  we  never  shall  look  upon  his  like  again. 


PHILADELPHIA.  1880. 


i64  SPEECH    AT    STEUBENVILLE,     OHIO. 


SPEECH  AT  STEUBENVILLE,  OHIO. 

I  fear  that  the  great  confidence  placed  in  my  ability 
is  unfounded.  Indeed,  I  am  sure  it  is.  Encompassed 
by  vast  difficulties  as  I  am,  nothing  shall  be  wanting  on 
my  part,  if  sustained  by  the  American  people  and  God. 
I  believe  the  devotion  to  the  Constitution  is  equally  great 
on  both  sides  of  the  river.  It  is  only  the  different  under- 
standing of  that  instrument  that  causes  difficulty.  The 
only  dispute  on  both  sides  is  "  What  are  their  rights  ?" 
If  the  majority  should  not  rule,  who  should  be  the 
judge  ?  Where  is  such  a  judge  to  be  found  ?  We  should 
all  be  bound  by  the  majority  of  the  American  people.  If 
not,  then  the  minority  must  control.  Would  that  be 
right  ?  Would  it  be  just  or  generous  ?  Assuredly  not.  I 
reiterate  that  the  majority  should  rule.  If  I  adopt  a 
wrong  policy,  the  opportunity  for  condemnation  will 
occur  in  four  years'  time.  Then  I  can  be  turned  out  and 
a  better  man  with  better  views  put  in  my  place. 


ROBERT    C.     WINTHROP.  165 

HIS  early  term  in  Congress  was  while  I  was  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives.  Thirty-four 
years  have  elapsed  since  that  Congress  assembled,  but  I 
recall  vividly  the  impressions  I  then  formed,  both  as  to 
his  ability  and  his  amiability.  We  were  old  Whigs  to- 
gether, and  agreed  entirely  on  all  questions  of  public 
interest.  I  could  not  always  concur  in  the  policy  of  the 
party  which  made  him  President,  but  I  never  lost  my 
personal  regard  for  him.  For  shrewdness,  sagacity  and 
keen,  practical  sense,  he  has  had  no  superior  in  our  day 
and  generation.  His  patience,  perseverance,  imper- 
turbable goodnature  and  devoted  patriotism,  during  the 
trying  times  of  the  civil  war,  were  of  inestimable  value 
to  the  Union  cause.  Meantime,  the  forbearing  and  con- 
ciliatory spirit,  which  he  manifested  so  signally  in  the  last 
months  of  his  presidency,  rendered  his  death — quite 
apart  from  the  abhorrent  and  atrocious  manner  in  which 
it  occurred — an  inexpressible  shock,  even  to  those  who 
had  differed  from  his  earlier  views.  His  life,  even  at  the 
moment  it  was  taken  away,  as  I  said  publicly  at  the  time, 
was  the  most  important  and  precious  life  in  our  whole 
land.  I  heartily  wish  success  to  the  memorials  of  a  ca- 
reer associated  so  prominently  with  the  greatest  event  of 
our  age,  and  which  must  ever  have  so  exalted  a  place  in 
American  history. 


BOSTON,  1 88 1. 


SPEECH    AT    PITTSBURGH. 


SPEECH  AT  PITTSBURGH. 

The  condition  of  the  country,  fellow-citizens,  is  an 
extraordinary  one  and  fills  the  mind  of  every  patriot  with 
anxiety  and  solicitude.  My  intention  is  to  give  this  sub- 
ject all  the  consideration  which  I  possibly  can  before  I 
speak  fully  and  definitely  in  regard  to  it,  s*o  that,  when  I 
do  speak,  I  may  be  as  nearly  right  as  possible,  and  when 
I  do  speak,  fellow-citizens,  I  hope  to  say  nothing  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  contrary  to  the 
integrity  of  the  Union,  or  which  will  in  any  way  prove 
inimical  to  the  liberties  of  the  people  or  to  the  peace  of 
the  whole  country.  And,  furthermore,  when  the  time 
arrives  for  me  to  speak  on  this  great  subject,  I  hope  to 
say  nothing  which  will  disappoint  the  reasonable  expecta- 
tions of  any  man,  or  disappoint  the  people  generally 
throughout  the  country,  especially  if  their  expectations 
have  been  based  upon  anything  which  I  may  have  here- 
tofore said. 


WILLIAM    F.     WARREN.  167 


"  nr^HEY  who  believe  and  clothe  not  their  faith  with  injustice, 
JL       they  shall  enjoy  security,  and  they  are  rightly  directed. 
And  this  is  our  argument  wherewith  we  furnished  Abraham  that  he 
might  make  use  of  it  against  his  people."  —  The  Koran,  Sura  VI. 


BOSTON  UNIVERSITY,  1880. 


i68  SPEECH    AT    CLEVELAND,     OHIO. 


SPEECH  AT  CLEVELAND,  OHIO. 

It  is  with  you,  the  people,  to  advance  the  great 
cause  of  the  Union  and  the  Constitution,  and  not  with 
any  one  man.  It  rests  with  you,  alone.  This  fact  is 
strongly  impressed  on  my  mind  at  present.  In  a  com- 
munity like  this,  whose  appearance  testifies  to  their  intel- 
ligence, I  am  convinced  that  the  cause  of  liberty  and  the 
Union  can  never  be  in  danger. 


H.     W.    BELLOWS.  i69 


FOR  singleness  and  simplicity  of  purpose,  vigor  of 
intellect,  and  sweetness  of  nature;  for  a  humor 
matched  with  a  pathos,  that  won  the  popular  sympathy 
and  was  most  rare  and  wise ;  for  a  homely,  hearty 
Americanism,  that  represented  our  new  world  and  young 
nation  ;  for  a  profound  and  passionate  love  of  his 
country  ;  for  undeviating  rectitude  and  an  unworldliness 
which  was  not  want  of  ability  to  lead  other  men,  or 
any  lack  of  skill  to  make  his  own  way — Lincoln  was 
the  ideal  of  a  President,  when  the  nation  most  wanted 
the  right  man  in  the  right  place. 


BROOKLYN,  1880. 


170  SPEECH    AT    BUFFALO,     N.      Y. 


SPEECH  AT  BUFFALO,  N.  Y. 

I  AM  sure  I  bring  a  heart  true  to  the  work.  For  the 
ability  to  perform  it,  I  must  trust  in  that  Supreme  Being 
who  has  never  forsaken  this  favored  land,  through  the 
instrumentality  of  this  great  and  intelligent  people. 
Without  that  assistance,  I  shall  surely  fail ;  with  it,  I 
cannot  fail.  When  we  speak  of  threatened  difficulties 
to  the  country,  it  is  natural  that  it  should  be  expected 
that  something  should  be  said  by  myself,  with  regard  to 
particular  measures.  Upon  more  mature  reflections, 
however — and  others  will  agree  with  me — that  when  it  is 
considered  that  these  difficulties  are  without  precedent, 
and  never  have  been  acted  upon  by  any  individual,  sit- 
uated as  I  am,  it  is  most  proper  I  should  wait  and  see  the 
developments,  and  get  all  the  light  possible,  so  that  when 
I  do  speak  authoritatively,  I  may  be  as  near  right  as  pos- 
sible. 


C.    F.    £  URN  AM.  171 


PRIOR  to  his  elevation  to  the  Presidency  of  the 
United  States  I  had  never  met  Mr.  Lincoln, 
although  I  was  acquainted  with  the  splendid  reputation 
he  had  achieved  in  Illinois  as  a  lawyer  and  statesman. 
His  venerable  father-in-law,  Robert  S.  Todd,  of  Lex- 
ington, was  one  of  my  earliest  friends,  and  his  more 
distinguished  relative,  Hon.  Daniel  Breck,  of  this  town, 
was  my  first  law  preceptor.  From  these  gentlemen  I 
had  learned  to  admire  his  great  character,  and  was  not 
surprised,  when,  in  1860,  the  nomination  for  the  chief 
magistracy  of  the  republic  was  given  him  by  the  conven- 
tion at  Chicago  over  rivals  so  illustrious  as  Chase  and 
Seward. 

After  his  election,  I  met  Mr.  Lincoln  often  in  Wash- 
ington, and  it  will  be  always  one  of  the  pleasant  memo- 
ries of  my  life  that  I  had  this  privilege  and  shared 
somewhat  his  regard  and  confidence.  Great  as  were 
the  men  who  constituted  his  cabinet — and  in  no  admin- 
istration were  ever  found  three  greater  men  than  Chase, 
Seward  and  Stanton — I  always  thought,  and  still  think, 
he  was  greater  than  any  of  them.  Calm,  courageous, 
generous,  just ;  he  was  the  impersonation  of  patriotism, 
and  his  labors  to  restore  the  Union  by  suppressing  the 
rebel  Confederacy,  and  by  striking  off  the  fetters  from 
four  million  slaves,  followed  by  his  untimely  death  by  the 
hand  of  an  assassin,  gave  to  him  of  all  the  men  of  this 
century  the  first  place  in  the  eyes  of  all  mankind. 


172 


C.    F.    BURN  AM. 


Nothing  which  can  be  done  to  perpetuate  his  fame,  to 
keep  him  ever  before  the  coming  generations  of  his 
countrymen,  should  be  omitted. 


RICHMOND,  1882. 


JOSEPH    f.    BRADLEY.  173 


'  I  "HE  greatness  of  his  figure  in  our  history  stands  so 
JL       near  and  towers  so  high  that  it  cannot  be  taken  in 
at  a  glance  in  this  generation. 


SPEECH    AT    SYRACUSE,    N.     Y. 


SPEECH  AT  SYRACUSE,  N.  Y. 

I  see  you  have  erected  a  very  fine  and  handsome 
platform  here,  for  me,  and  I  presume  you  expect  me  to 
speak  from  it.  If  I  should  go  upon  it,  you  would  imag- 
ine that  I  was  about  to  deliver  you  a  much  longer  speech 
than  I  am.  I  wish  you  to  understand  that  I  mean  no 
discourtesy  to  you  by  thus  dealing.  I  intend  discourtesy 
to  no  one.  But  I  wish  you  to  understand  that,  though 
I  am  unwilling  to  go  upon  this  platform,  you  are  not  at 
liberty  to  draw  any  inference  concerning  any  other  plat- 
form with  which  my  name  has  been,  or  is,  connected.  I 
wish  you  long  life  and  prosperity,  individually,  and  pray 
that  with  the  perpetuity  of  those  institutions  under 
which  we  have  all  so  long  lived  and  prospered,  our  hap- 
piness may  be  secured,  our  future  made  brilliant,  and  the 
glorious  destiny  of  our  country  established  forever. 


A.    E.     BURN  SIDE. 


175 


T 


HE  greatest  man  of  this  age. 


PROVIDENCE,  1881. 


1 76  SPEECH    AT    UTICA,    N.     Y. 


SPEECH  AT  UTICA,  N.  Y. 

» 
LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN — I  have  no  speech  to  make 

to  you,  and  no  time  to  speak  it  I  appear  before  you 
that  I  may  see  you,  and  that  you  may  see  me ;  and  I  am 
willing  to  admit,  that  so  far  as  the  ladies  are  concerned,  I 
have  the  best  of  the  bargain ;  though  I  wish  it  to  be 
understood  that  I  do  not  make  the  same  acknowledg- 
ment concerning  the  men. 


S.     WELLS     WILLIAMS.  177 


WHEN  President  Lincoln  was  killed,  I  was  the 
acting  United  States  Minister  at  Peking,  and  re- 
ported the  assassination  to  His  Imperial  Highness,  Prince 
Kting,  then  at  the  head  of  the  government,  from  whom 
a  suitable  reply  was  received  on  the  8th  of  July,  1865. 
I  sent  the  correspondence  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  with 
the  following  remarks  :  "  The  limits  of  a  dispatch  will 
hardly  allow  me  more  than  to  add  my  tribute  of  admira- 
tion to  the  character  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  His  firm  and 
consistent  maintenance  of  the  national  cause,  his  clear 
understanding  of  the  great  questions  at  issue,  and  his 
unwearied  efforts,  while  enforcing  the  laws,  to  deprive 
the  conflict  of  all  bitterness,  were  all  so  happily  blended 
with  a  reliance  on  Divine  guidance,  as  to  elevate  him 
to  a  high  rank  among  successful  statesmen.  His  name 
is  hereafter  identified  with  the  cause  of  Emancipation, 
while  his  patriotism,  integrity,  and  other  virtues,  and  his 
untimely  death,  render  him  not  unworthy  of  mention 
with  William  of  Orange  and  Washington." 

This   was   written   seventeen  years  ago,  since  which 
time  I  have  learned  more  of  the  inimitable  blending-  in 

o 

his  character  of  mercy  and  firmness,  and  estimate  him 
higher.  He  was  tested  in  every  way  throughout  the 
long  struggle,  and  his  rare  virtues  will  endure  him  to 
the  American  people  the  more  they  study  his  life. 


^^L^-\^J 

YALE  COLLEGE,   1882. 

12 


178  SPEECH. 


SPEECH 

FROM    THE  STEPS   OF   THE   CAPITOL,    ALBANY,    N.    Y. 

I  AM  notified  by  your  Governor  that  this  reception  is 
given  without  distinction  of  party.  I  accept  it  the  more 
gladly,  because  it  is  so.  Almost  all  men  in  this  country, 
and  in  any  country  where  freedom  of  thought  is  toler- 
ated, attach  themselves  to  political  parties.  It  is  but 
ordinary  charity  to  attribute  this  to  the  fact  that  in  so 
attaching  himself  to  the  party  which  his  judgment 
prefers,  the  citizen  believes  he  thereby  promotes  the  best 
interests  of  the  whole  country ;  but  when  an  election  is 
past,  it  is  altogether  befitting  a  free  people  that,  until  the 
next  election,  they  should  be  as  one  people.  The  recep- 
tion you  have  extended  to  me  to-day,  is  not  given  to  me 
personally.  It  should  not  be  so,  but  as  the  representa- 
tive, for  the  time  being,  of  the  majority  of  the  nation. 
If  the  election  had  resulted  in  the  selection  of  either  of 
the  other  candidates,  the  same  cordiality  should  have 
been  extended  to  him,  as  is  extended  to  me  this  day,  in 
testimony  of  the  devotion  of  the  whole  people  to  the 
Constitution  and  the  whole  Union,  and  of  their  desire  to 
perpetuate  our  institutions,  and  to  hand  them  down  in 
their  perfection,  to  succeeding  generations. 


JOHN    BRIGHT.  179 


r*HE    life   of    President    Lincoln    is   written  in  im- 
-L       perishable  characters  in  the  history  of  the  great 
American  Republic. 


LONDON,  1880. 


i  So 


SPEECH    IN    THE    ASSEMBLY    HALL. 


SPEECH    IN    THE   ASSEMBLY   HALL  AT  AL- 
BANY,  N.  Y. 

/ 
I  DO  not  propose  to  enter  into  an  explanation  of  any 

particular  line  of  policy  as  to  our  present  difficulties,  to 
be  adopted  by  the  incoming  Administration.  I  deem  it 
just  to  you,  to  myself,  and  to  all,  that  I  should  see  every- 
thing, that  I  should  hear  everything,  that  I  should  have 
every  light  that  can  be  brought  within  my  reach,  in  order 
that  when  I  do  so  speak,  I  shall  have  enjoyed  every 
opportunity  to  take  correct  and  true  grounds ;  and  for 
this  reason  I  don't  -propose  to  speak,  at  this  time,  of  the 
policy  of  the  Government.  But  when  the  time  comes,  I 
shall  speak,  as  well  as  I  am  able,  for  the  good  of  the 
present  and  future  of  this  country — for  the  good  both  of 
the  North  and  the  South  of  this  country — for  the 
good  of  the  one  and  the  other  ;  and  of  all  sections  of 
the  country.  In  the  meantime,  if  we  have  patience,  if 
we  restrain  ourselves,  if  we  allow  ourselves  not  to  run  off 
in  a  passion,  I  still  have  confidence  that  the  Almighty, 
the  Maker  of  the  Universe,  will,  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  this  great  and  intelligent  people,  bring  us 
through  this,  as  he  has  through  all  the  other  difficulties 
of  our  country. 


G.     DE    LA     MATYR.  181 


MORE  fully  than  any  other  man,  not  excepting 
Washington,  Abraham  Lincoln  embodied  and 
exhibited  our  distinctive  civilization.  "  From  the  people, 
of  the  people,  and  for  the  people,"  he  inspired  and  di- 
rected them  through  the  most  trying  ordeal  that  this 
government  has  passed,  or  ever  can  pass. 

Geologists  tell  us,  the  lower  stratum  of  the  earth's 
crust  is  granite,  and  that  the  highest  mountains  are  the 
upheaval  of  this  granite,  so  granite  is  both  base  and 
crown.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  lifted  by  the  force  of  his  un- 
rivaled genius  from  the  mass  of  the  people,  the  im- 
mutable basis,  the  granite  of  our  civilization,  to  an  ele- 
vation of  solitary  grandeur.  Embracing  all  phases, 
from  the  humblest  to  the  highest,  his  life  bears  all  to  a 
higher  altitude  where  its  influence  falls  in  perpetual  bene- 
diction. 


INDIANAPOUS,   1882. 


1 82  SPEECH    AT    POUGHKEEPSIE. 


SPEECH  AT  POUGHKEEPSIE,  N.  Y. 

I  CANNOT  refrain  from  saying  that  I  am  highly  grati- 
fied, as  much  here  indeed,  under  the  circumstances,  as  I 
have  been  anywhere  on  my  route,  to  witness  this  noble 
demonstration — made,  not  in  honor  of  an  individual,  but 
of  the  man  who  at  this  time  humbly,  but  earnestly,  repre- 
sents the  majesty  of  the  Nation.  This  reception,  like  all 
others  that  have  been  tendered  to  me,  doubtless  ema- 
nates from  all  the  political  parties,  and  not  from  one 
alone.  As  such,  I  accept  it  the  more  gratefully,  since  it 
indicates  an  earnest  desire  on  the  part  of  the  whole 
people,  without  regard  to  political  differences,  to  save 
— not  the  country,  because  the  country  will  save  itself — 
but  to  save  the  institutions  of  the  country — those  insti- 
tutions under  which,  in  the  last  three  quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury, we  have  grown  to  be  a  great,  an  intelligent,  and  a 
happy  people — the  greatest,  the  most  intelligent,  and  the 
happiest  people  in  the  world.  These  noble  manifesta- 
tions indicate,  with  unerring  certainty,  that  the  whole 
people  are  willing  to  make  common  cause  for  this  object ; 
that  if,  as  it  ever  must  be,  some  have  been  successful  in 
the  recent  election,  and  some  have  been  beaten — if  some 
are  satisfied,  and  some  are  dissatisfied — the  defeated  party 
are  not  in  favor  of  sinking  the  ship,  but  are  desirous  of 
running  it  through  the  tempest  in  safety,  and  willing,  if 
they  think  the  people  have  committed  an  error  in  their 
verdict  now,  to  wait  in  the  hope  of  reversing  it,  and  set- 


SPEECH    AT    POUGHKEEPSIE.  183 

ting  it  right  next  time.  I  do  not  say  that  in  the  recent 
election  the  people  did  the  wisest  thing  that  could  have 
been  done ;  indeed,  I  do  not  think  they  did ;  but  I  do 
say,  that  m  accepting  the  great  trust  committed  to  me, 
which  I  do  with  a  determination  to  endeavor  to  prove 
worthy  of  it,  I  must  rely  upon  you,  upon  the  people  of 
the  whole  country,  for  support ;  and  with  their  sustaining 
aid,  even  I,  humble  as  I  am,  cannot  fail  to  carry  the  ship 
of  state  safely  through  the  storm. 


1 84 


SPEECH    AT    PEEK  SKILL,    JVr.     Y. 


SPEECH    AT   PEEKSKILL,    N.  Y. 

I  WILL  say  in  a  single  sentence,  in  regard  to  the  diffi- 
culties that  lie  before  me  and  our  beloved  country,  that  if 
I  can  only  be  as  generously  and  unanimously  sustained, 
as  the  demonstrations  I  have  witnessed  indicate  I  shall 
be,  I  shall  not  fail ;  but  without  your  sustaining  hands  I 
am  sure  that  neither  I,  nor  any  other  man,  can  hope  to 
surmount  these  difficulties.  I  trust  that  in  the  course  I 
shall  pursue,  I  shall  be  sustained  not  only  by  the  party 
that  elected  me,  but  by  the  patriotic  people  of  the  whole 
country. 


JOHN    B A  3COM.  185 


I  LOOK  upon  A.  Lincoln  as  a  remarkable  illustra- 
tion of  the  important  part  which  a  sound  social  and 
moral  character  may  play  in  a  political  career.  While,  in 
a  lower  sense,  he  opened  up  his  own  way  to  fortune  by 
his  own  industry,  in  a  higher  sense,  it  was  opened  up  for 
him  by  the  moral  forces  at  play  about  him.  The  ice-floe 
parts  before  the  skillful  sea-captain.  Not  by  his  own  force 
chiefly,  Lincoln  threaded  his  narrow  strip  of  open  way, 
till  at  length  he  reached,  and  a  great  nation  with  him, 
the  high-seas,  by  a  shrewd  intellect,  and  far  more,  by  an 
honestly  sympathetic  heart.  He  was  not  a  great  man 
in  intellect  only,  he  was  not  a  moral  hero  ;  but  he  pos- 
sessed in  an  unusual  degree,  in  an  active,  mobile  form, 
humane  sympathies  ;  and  these  saved  him  and  us.  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  was  one  of  those  few  men,  at  the  sight  of 
whom,  we  trust  God  and  take  courage. 


MADISON,   1880. 


1 86  REPLY    TO     THE    MAYOR     OF    NEW     YORK. 


REPLY  TO  THE  MAYOR  OF  NEW  YORK. 

IN  my  devotion  to  the  Union  I  hope  I  am  behind  no 
man  in  the  nation.  As  to  my  wisdom  in  conducting 
affairs  so  as  to  tend  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  I 
fear  too  great  confidence  may  have  been  placed  in  me. 
I  am  sure  I  bring  a  heart  devoted  to  the  work.  There  is 
nothing  that  could  ever  bring  me  to  consent — willingly 
to  consent — to  the  destruction  of  this  Union,  unless  it 
would  be  that  thing  for  which  the  Union  itself  was  made. 
I  understand  that  the  ship  is  made  for  carrying  and  pres- 
ervation of  the  cargo  ;  and  so  long  as  the  ship  is  safe 
with  the  cargo  it  shall  not  be  abandoned.  This  Union 
shall  never  be  abandoned,  unless  the  possibility  of  its 
existence  shall  cease  to  exist,  without  the  necessity  of 
throwing  passengers  and  cargo  overboard.  So  long, 
then,  as  it  is  possible  that  the  prosperity  and  liberties  of 
the  people  can  be  preserved  within  the  Union,  it  shall  be 
my  purpose  at  all  times  to  preserve  it. 


GEO.     W.     M INTER.  187 


MR.  LINCOLN  was  great  in  goodness,  as  well  as 
good  in  greatness.  Like  the  silent  potent  forces 
in  nature,  he  was  most  powerful  in  the  calm.  He  never 
shunned  storms  and  tempests,  but  never  courted  them. 
His  love  of  honesty  and  fair  dealing  was  one  of  his  most 
prominent  characteristics ;  he  never  stooped  to  trickery. 
Let  the  following  incident  illustrate  this  trait  in  his 
character : 

In  the  spring  term  of  the  Tazewell  County  Court,  in 
1847,  which,  at  that  time,  was  held  in  the  village  of  Tre- 
mont,  I  was  detained  as  witness  an  entire  week.  Lin- 
coln was  employed  in  several  suits,  and  among  them  was 
one  of  Case  vs.  Snow  Bros.  The  Snow  Bros.,  as 
appeared  in  evidence  (who  were  both  minors),  had  pur- 
chased from  an  old  Mr.  Chase  what  was  then  called  a 
"  prairie  team,"  consisting  of  two  or  three  yoke  of  oxen 
and  prairie  plow,  giving  therefor  their  joint  note  for  some 
two  hundred  dollars,  but  when  pay-day  came,  refused 
to  pay,  pleading  the  minor  act.  The  note  was  placed  in 
Lincoln's  hands  for  collection.  The  suit  was  called,  a 
jury  impaneled.  The  Snow  Bros,  did  not  deny  the 
note,  but  pleaded,  through  their  counsel,  that  they  were 
minors,  and  that  Mr.  Case  knew  they  were,  at  the  time 
of  the  contract  and  conveyance.  All  this  was  admitted 
by  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  his  peculiar  phrase,  "  Yes,  gentle- 
men, I  guess  that's  so."  The  minor  act  was  read,  and  its 
validity  admitted,  in  the  same  manner.  The  counsel  of 
the  Snow  Bros,  were  permitted,  without  question,  to 


1 88  GEO.     W.     MINIER. 

I 

state  all  these  things  to  the  jury,  and  to  show  by  the  stat- 
ute that  these  minors  could  not  be  held  responsible  for 
their  contract.  By  this  time,  you  may  well  suppose  that 
I  began  to  be  uneasy.  "  What !  "  thought  I,  "  this  good 
old  man,  who  confided  in  these  boys,  to  be  wronged  in 
this  way,  and  even  his  counsel,  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  submit  in 
silence  !"  I  looked  at  the  court,  Judge  Treat,  but  could 
read  nothing  in  his  calm  and  dignified  demeanor.  Just 
then,  Mr.  Lincoln  slowly  got  up,  and  in  his  strange,  half 
erect  attitude,  and  clear,  quiet  accent  began,  "  Gentlemen 
of  the  jury,  are  you  willing  to  allow  these  boys  to  begin 
life  with  this  shame  and  disgrace  attached  to  their  charac- 
ter? If  you  are,  /  am  not.  The  best  judge  of  human 
character  that  ever  wrote,  has  left  these  immortal  words 
for  all  of  us  to  ponder : 

"  '  Good  name  in  man  or  woman,  dear  my  lord, 
Is  the  immediate  jewel  of  their  souls. 

Who  steals  my  purse,  steals  trash  ;  'tis  something,  nothing  : 
'Twas  mine,  'tis  his  ;  and  has  been  slave  to  thousands. 
But  he  that  filches  from  me  my  good  name, 
Robs  me  of  that  which  not  enriches  him, 
And  leaves  me  poor,  indeed.'  " 

Then  rising  to  his  full  height,  and  looking  upon  the  Snow 
Bros,  with  the  compassion  of  a  brother,  his  long  right  arm 
extended  toward  the  opposing  counsel,  he  continued : 
*'  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury,  these  poor,  innocent  boys  would 
never  have  attempted  this  low  villainy,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  advice  of  these  lawyers."  Then,  for  a  few  minutes, 
he  showed  how  even  the  noble  science  of  law  may  be 
prostituted;  with  a  scathing  rebuke  to  those  who  thus 


CEO.      W.     MINIER.  189 

belittle  their  profession,  and  concluded :  "  And  now, 
gentlemen,  you  have  it  in  your  power  to  set  these  boys 
right  before  the  world."  He  plead  for  the  young  men 
only  ;  I  think  he  did  not  mention  his  client's  name.  The 
jury,  without  leaving  their  seats,  decided  that  Snow  Bros. 
must  pay  that  debt ;  and  they,  after  hearing  Lincoln, 
were  as  willing  to  pay  it  as  the  jury  were  determined 
they  should.  I  think  the  entire  argument  lasted  not 
above  five  minutes. 

I  once  heard  Mr.  Lincoln  speak  on  the  Tariff,  and 
he  illustrated  it  in  this  way ;  "  I  confess  that  I  have  not 
any  very  decided  views  on  the  question.  A  revenue  we 
must  have.  In  orden  to  keep  house,  we  must  have 
breakfast,  dinner  and  supper ;  and  this  tariff  business 
seems  to  be  necessary  to  bring  them.  But  yet,  there  is 
something  obscure  about  it  It  reminds  me  of  the  fel- 
low that  came  into  a  grocery  down  here  in  Menard 
County,  at  Salem,  where  I  once  lived,  and  called  for  a 
picayune's  worth  of  crackers  ;  so  the  clerk  laid  them  out 
on  the  counter.  After  sitting  awhile,  he  said  to  the  clerk, 
'  I  don't  want  these  crackers,  take  them,  and  give  me  a 
glass  of  cider.'  So  the  clerk  put  the  crackers  back  into 
the  box,  and  handed  the  fellow  the  cider.  After  drinking, 
he  started  for  the  door.  '  Here,  Bill,'  called  out  the 
clerk,  '  pay  me  for  your  cider.'  '  Why,'  said  Bill,  '  I 
gave  you  the  crackers  for  it.'  'Well,  then,  pay  me  for 
the  crackers.'  '  But  I  haint  had  any ;  '  responded  Bill. 
'  That's  so,'  said  the  clerk.  '  Well,  clear  out !  It  seems 
to  me  that  I've  lost  a  picayune  somehow,  but  I  can't 
make  it  out  exactly.'  "So,"  said  Lincoln,  after  the 


1 90 


GEO.     W.     MINIER. 


laugh  had  subsided,  "  it  is  with  the  tariff ;  somebody  gets 
the  picayune,  but  I  don't  exactly  understand  how." 

I  am  glad  to  assist  in  embalming  in  the  minds  of  his 
countrymen,  the  true  history  and  eminent  character  of 
the  greatest  American  President,  before  they  are  over- 
run with  the  weeds  of  fable. 


MINIER,  1882. 


JOHN    £.     GO  UGH. i 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN,    one   of  the  grandest  men 
IJL     this   country   or  the   world   has   ever  produced, 
pure  in  life  and  motive,  inflexible  in  his  purpose  to  do 
right  as  he  understood  it,  of  undaunted  courage  in  car- 
rying out  the  principles  he   believed  to  be  true,  large- 
hearted,  and  tender  in  his  sympathy  with  human  suffer- 
ing- 
Bold  as  a  lion  and  gentle  as  a  child — 
He  lived  to  bless  the  world. 

He  broke  no  promise,  served  no  private  end, 
He  gained  no  title,  and  he  lost  no  friend. 


WORCESTER,  1880. 


1 92        SPEECH     TO     VARIOUS    ASSOCIATIONS. 


SPEECH    TO   VARIOUS  REPUBLICAN    ASSO- 
CIATIONS,  NEW  YORK. 

IT  was  not  intimated  to  me  that  I  was  brought  into 
the  room  where  Daniel  Webster  and  Henry  Clay  had 
made  speeches,  and  where,  in  my  position,  I  might  be 
expected  to  do  something  like  those  men,  or  do  some- 
thing worthy  of  myself  or  my  audience.  I  have  been 
occupying  a  position  since  the  Presidential  election,  of 
silence,  of  avoiding  public  speaking,  of  avoiding  public 
writing ;  I  have  been  doing  so,  because  I  thought  upon 
full  consideration  that  was  the  proper  course  for  me  to 
take.  I  have  not  kept  silence  since  the  Presidential 
election  from  any  party  wantonness,  or  from  any  indiffer- 
ence to  the  anxiety  that  pervades  the  minds  of  men  about 
the  aspect  of  the  political  affairs  of  this  country.  I  have 
kept  silence  for  the  reason  that  I  supposed  it  was  pecu- 
liarly proper  that  I  should  do  so  until  the  time  came 
when,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  country,  I  could 
speak  officially.  I  alluded  to  the  custom  of  the  Presi- 
dential-elect, at  the  time  of  taking  the  oath  of  office ; 
that  is  what  I  meant  by  the  custom  of  the  country.  I  do 
suppose  that,  while  the  political  drama  being  enacted  in 
this  country,  at  this  time,  is  rapidly  shifting  its  scenes — 
forbidding  an  anticipation,  with  any  degree  of  certainty, 
to-day,  what  we  shall  see  to-morrow — it  was  peculiarly 
fitting  that  I  should  see  it  all,  up  to  the  last  minute, 


SPEECH     TO     VARIOUS    ASSOCIATIONS.         193 

before  I  should  take  ground  that  I  might  be  disposed 
(by  the  shifting  of  the  scenes  afterwards)  also  to  shift.  I 
have  said  several  times,  upon  this  journey,  and  I  now 
repeat  it  to  you,  that  when  the  time  does  come  I  shall 
then  take  the  ground  that  I  think  is  right,  right  for  the 
North,  for  the  South,  for  the  East,  for  the  West,  for  the 
whole  country.  And  in  doing  so,  I  hope  to  feel  no 
necessity  pressing  upon  me  to  say  anything  in  conflict 
with  the  Constitution ;  in  conflict  with  the  continued 
Union  of  these  States,  in  conflict  with  the  perpetuation 
of  the  liberties  of  this  people,  or  anything  in  conflict  with 
anything  whatever  that  I  have  ever  given  you  reason  to 
expect  from  me. 

18 


194 


SPEECH    AT    NEWARK,    N.     f. 


SPEECH    AT    NEWARK,    NEW    JERSEY. 

I  AM  sure,  however,  that  I  have  not  the  ability  to 
do  anything  unaided  of  God,  and  that  without  his  sup- 
port, and  that  of  this  free,  happy,  prosperous,  and  intelli- 
gent people,  no  man  can  succeed  in  doing  that  the  im« 
portance  of  which  we  all  comprehend. 


C.    M.    CLAY.  195 


K^COLN  was  the  truest  friend  I  ever  had  and 
therefore  my  estimate  of  his  character  must  be 
taken  "cum  grano  salis."  He  was  the  most  conscien- 
tious man  I  ever  knew,  and  ranks  with  Washington  in 
genius,  public  service,  and  patriotism.  They  will  go 
down  to  posterity  in  equal  love,  admiration,  and  grati- 
tude. After  this  I  need  not  say  that  he  was  the  man  oi 
his  times  :  and  such  is  the  verdict  of  his  contemporaries, 


WHITE  HALL,  1880. 


196        SPEECH    IN    THE    SENATE    CHAMBER. 


SPEECH  IN  THE  SENATE  CHAMBER. 

TRENTON,    NEW   JERSEY. 

MAY  I  be  pardoned  if,  upon  this  occasion,  I  mention 
that  away  back  in  my  childhood,  the  earliest  days  of 
my  being  able  to  read,  I  got  hold  of  a  small  book, 
such  a  one  as  few  of  the  younger  members  have  seen, 
"  Weem's  Life  of  Washington."  I  remember  all  the 
accounts  there  given  of  the  battle-fields  and  struggles 
for  liberties  of  the  country,  and  none  fixed  themselves 
upon  my  imagination  so  deeply  as  the  struggle  here  at 
Trenton,  New  Jersey.  The  crossing  of  the  river,  the 
contest  with  the  Hessians  ;  the  great  hardships  endured 
at  that  time,  all  fixed  themselves  on  my  memory,  more 
than  any  single  revolutionary  event  ;  and  you  all  know, 
for  you  have  all  been  boys,  how  these  early  impressions 
last  longer  than  any  others.  I  recollect  thinking  then,  boy 
even  though  I  was,  that  there  must  have  been  some- 
thing more  than  common  that  these  men  struggled  for. 
I  am  exceedingly  anxious  that  that  thing  which  they 
struggled  for ;  that  something  even  more  than  National 
Independence  ;  that  something  that  held  out  a  great 
promise  to  all  the  people  of  the  world  to  all  time  to  come 
— I  am  exceedingly  anxious  that  this  Union,  the  Consti- 
tution, and  the  liberties  of  the  people  shall  be  perpetu- 
ated in  accordance  with  the  original  idea  for  which  that 
struggle  was  made,  and  I  shall  be  most  happy  indeed  il 


SPEECH    IN    THE    SENATE    CHAMBER.        197 

I  shall  be  an  humble  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
Almighty  and  of  this,  his  most  chosen  people,  as  the 
chosen  instrument — also  in  the  hands  of  the  Almighty — 
for  perpetrating  the  object  of  that  great  struggle. 


198 


SPEECH    AT    TRENTON,    N.    J. 


SPEECH  AT   TRENTON,  NEW  JERSEY. 

DELIVERED    IN    THE    HOUSE   OF   ASSEMBLY. 

I  SHALL  endeavor  to  take  the  ground  I  deem  most 
just  to  the  North,  the  East,  the  West,  the  South,  and 
the  whole  country.  I  take  it,  I  hope,  in  good  temper, 
certainly  with  no  malice  towards  any  section.  I  shall  do 
all  that  may  be  in  my  power  to  promote  a  peaceful  settle- 
ment of  .all  our  difficulties.  The  man  does  not  live  who 
is  more  devoted  to  peace  than  I  am,  none  who  would 
do  more  to  preserve  it,  but  it  may  be  necessary  to  put 
the  foot  down  firmly.  And  if  I  do  my  duty  and  do 
right  you  will  sustain  me,  will  you  not?  Received,  as 
I  am,  by  the  members  of  a  Legislature,  the  majority  of 
whom  do  not  agree  with  me  in  political  sentiments,  I 
trust  that  I  may  have  their  assistance  in  piloting  the 
ship  of  State  through  this  voyage,  surrounded  by  perils 
as  it  is,  for  if  it  should  suffer  wreck  now,  there  will  be 
no  pilot  ever  needed  for  another  voyage. 


SCHUYLER    COLFAX.  199 


HIS  freedom  from  passion  and  bitterness — in  his 
acute  sense  of  justice — in  his  courageous  faith  in 
the  right,  and  his  inextinguishable  hatred  of  wrong — in 
warm  and  heartfelt  sympathy  and  mercy,  in  his  coolness 
of  judgment,  in  his  unquestioned  rectitude  of  intention — 
—in  a  word,  in  his  ability  to  lift  himself  for  his  country's 
sake  above  all  mere  partizanship,  in  all  the  marked  traits 
of  his  character  combined,  he  has  had  no  parallel  since 
Washington,  and,  while  our  republic  endures  he  will 
live  with  him  in  the  grateful  hearts  of  his  grateful 
countrymen. 


SOUTH  BEND,  1880. 


200  ADDRESS     TO     THE    MAYOR    AND     CITIZENS 


ADDRESS   TO   THE   MAYOR   AND  CITIZENS 
OF  PHILADELPHIA 

I  DEEM  it  a  happy  circumstance  that  this  dissatisfied 
position  of  our  fellow-citizens  does  not  point  us  to  any- 
thing in  which  they  are  being  injured,  or  about  to  be 
injured ;  for  which  reason  I  have  felt  all  the  while  jus- 
tified in  concluding  that  the  crisis,  the  panic,  the  anxiety 
of  the  country  at  this  time,  is  artificial.  If  there  be 
those  who  differ  with  me  upon  this  subject,  they  have 
not  pointed  out  the  substantial  difficulty  that  exists.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  an  artificial  panic  may  not  do 
considerable  harm ;  that  it  has  done  such  I  do  not 
deny.  I  promise  you,  in  all  sincerity,  that  I  bring  to 
the  work  a  sincere  heart.  Whether  I  will  bring  a  head 
equal  to  that  heart  will  be  for  future  times  to  deter- 
mine. It  were  useless  for  me  to  speak  of  details  of 
plans  now  ;  I  shall  speak  officially  next  Monday  week,  if 
ever.  If  I  should  not  speak  then,  it  were  useless  for  me 
to  do  so  now.  If  I  do  speak  then  it  is  useless  for  me  to 
do  so  now.  When  I  do  speak,  I  shall  take  such  ground 
as  I  deem  best  calculated  to  restore  peace,  harmony, 
and  prosperity  to  the  country,  and  tend  to  the 
perpetuity  of  the  nation  and  the  liberty  of  these 
States  and  these  people.  Your  worthy  Mayor  has  ex- 
pressed the  wish,  in  which  I  join  with  him,  that  it 
were  convenient  for  me  to  remain  in  your  city  long 
enough  to  consult  your  merchants  and  manufacturers ;  or 


ADDRESS     TO     THE    MAYOR    AND     CITIZENS.  201 

as  it  were,  to  listen  to  those  breathings  rising  within  the 
consecrated  walls  wherein  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  I  will  add,  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
were  originally  framed  and  adopted.  I  assure  you  and 
your  Mayor  that  I  had  hoped,  on  this  occasion,  and  upon 
all  occasions  during  my  life,  that  I  shall  do  nothing  in- 
consistent with  the  teachings  of  these  holy  and  most 
sacred  walls.  I  never  asked  anything  that  does  not 
breathe  from  these  sacred  walls.  All  my  political  warfare 
has  been  in  favor  of  the  teachings  that  came  forth  from 
these  sacred  walls.  May  my  right  hand  forget  its  cun- 
ning, and  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  my  mouth,  if  ever 
I  prove  false  to  those  teachings. 


2O2 


SPEECH    IN    INDEPENDENCE    HALL. 


SPEECH  IN   INDEPENDENCE  HALL 

AT    PHILADELPHIA. 

I  HAVE  never  had  a  feeling,  politically,  that  did  not 
spring  from  the  sentiments  embodied  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  I  have  often  pondered  over  the 
dangers  which  were  incurred  by  the  men  who  assembled 
here  and  framed  and  adopted  that  Declaration.  I  have 
pondered  over  the  toils  that  were  endured  by  the  officers 
and  soldiers  of  the  army  who  achieved  that  independ- 
ence. I  have  often  inquired  of  myself  what  great  prin- 
ciple or  idea  it  was  that  kept  this  Confederacy  so  long 
together.  It  was  net  the  mere  matter  of  the  separation 
of  the  colonies  from  the  mother-land,  but  that  sentiment 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  which  gave  liberty 
not  alone  to  the  people  of  this  country,  but  I  hope  to  the 
world  for  all  future  time.  It  was  that  which  gave 
promise  that,  in  due  time,  the  weight  would  be  lifted 
from  the  shoulders  of  all  men.  This  is  the  sentiment 
embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Now, 
my  friends,  can  this  country  be  saved  on  that  basis?  If  it 
can,  I  shall  consider  myself  one  of  the  happiest  men  in 
the  world  if  I  can  help  to  save  it.  If  it  cannot  be  saved 
upon  that  principle  it  will  be  truly  awful.  But  if  this 
country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving  up  that  principle, 
I  was  about  to  say  /  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this 
spot  than  surrender  it. 


ROBERT    COLLYER.  203 


A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN'S  greatness  and  worth  lay 
XJL  in  his  simple  manhood.  So  that  the  excuse  we 
offer  for  the  faults  and  failings  of  some  great  men, 
"  They  were  only  human,"  was  the  very  crown  of  his  ex- 
cellence. He  was  a  whole  man,  human  to  the  core  of 
his  heart. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


204     SPEECH    BEFORE    INDEPENDENCE    HALL. 


SPEECH 

BEFORE    INDEPENDENCE    HALL,    PHILADELPHIA,    FEB.,    1 86 1 
WHILE   HOISTING   A    NEW    FLAG. 

EACH  additional  star  added  to  that  flag  has  given 
additional  prosperity  and  happiness  to  this  country,  until 
it  has  advanced  to  its  present  condition ;  and  its  welfare 
in  the  future,  as  well  as  in  the  past,  is  in  your  hands. 
Cultivating  the  spirit  that  animated  our  fathers,  who 
gave  renown  and  celebrity  to  this  hall ;  cherishing  that 
fraternal  feeling  which  has  so  long  characterized  us  as  a 
nation ;  excluding  passion,  ill-temper,  and  precipitate 
action  on  all  occasions,  I  think  we  may  promise  our- 
selves that  additional  stars  shall  from  time  to  time  be 
placed  upon  that  flag,  until  we  shall  number,  as  was 
anticipated  by  the  great  historian,  five  hundred  millions 
of  happy  and  prosperous  people. 


ROSCOE    CONKLING.  205 


IT  would  be  difficult,  in  many  words,  and  perhaps  not 
more  difficult  in  a  few,  to  state  my  estimate  of  the 
"  Life  and  Services  of  Abraham  Lincoln."  It  was  a  hard 
life,  a  busy  life,  an  American  life,  and  a  great  life ;  and  it 
rendered  services  to  the  country  which  can  hardly  be 
over-estimated,  and  which  it  has  been  the  fortune  of, 
perhaps,  only  two  other  men  to  equal. 


UTICA,  1880. 


206 


SPEECH    AT    LANCASTER. 


SPEECH  AT  LANCASTER,  PENNSYLVANIA. 

I  APPEAR  not  to  make  a  speech.  I  have  not  time  to 
make  a  speech  at  length,  and  not  strength  to  make  them 
on  every  occasion ;  and  worse  than  all,  I  have  none  to 
make.  There  is  plenty  of  matter  to  speak  about  in  these 
times,  but  it  is  well  known  that  the  more  a  man  speaks 
the  less  he  is  understood — the  more  he  says  one  thing, 
the  more  his  adversaries  contend  he  meant  something 
else.  I  shall  soon  have  occasion  to  speak  officially,  and 
then  I  will  endeavor  to  put  my  thoughts  just  as  plain  as 
I  can  express  myself — true  to  the  Constitution  and 
Union  of  all  the  States,  and  to  the  perpetual  liberty  of 
all  the  people. 


S.    J.    KIRK  WOOD.  207 


IT  is  not  probable  that  the  memory  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln will  perish  from  the  earth,  so  long  as  "  a  gov- 
ernment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people  " 
shall  stand.  Nevertheless,  I  believe  that  anything  which 
tends  to  bring  the  honest,  true  life  of  so  grand  a  man 
nearer  to  the  thoughts  and  hearts  of  each  generation,  is  a 
worthy  work. 


IOWA  CITY,  1882. 


zo8        SPEECH    BEFORE     THE    LEGISLATURE. 


SPEECH 

BEFORE   THE    LEGISLATURE   OF    PENNSYLVANIA AT    HARRIS- 
BURG,    FEBRUARY    22,     1 86 1. 

I  HAVE  already  gone  through  one  exceedingly  inter- 
esting scene  this  morning,  in  the  ceremonies  at  Philadel- 
phia. Under  the  high  conduct  of  gentlemen  there,  I 
was  for  the  first  time  allowed  the  privilege  of  standing 
in  old  Independence  Hall,  to  have  a  few  words  addressed 
to  me  there,  and  opening  up  to  me  an  opportunity  of  ex- 
pressing, with  much  regret,  that  I  had  not  more  time  to 
express  something  of  my  own  feelings,  excited  by  the 
occasion,  somewhat  to  harmonize  and  give  shape  to  the 
feelings  that  had  been  really  the  feelings  of  my  whole 
life.  Besides  this,  our  friends  there  had  provided  a  mag- 
nificent flag  of  our  country  ;  they  had  arranged  so  that 
I  was  given  the  honor  of  raising  it  to  the  head  of  its 
staff.  And,  when  it  went  up,  I  was  pleased  that  it  went 
to  its  place  by  the  strength  of  my  own  feeble  arm,  when, 
according  to  the  arrangement,  the  cord  was  pulled,  and 
it  floated  gloriously  to  the  wind,  without  an  accident,  in  the 
light,  glowing  sunshine  of  the  morning.  I  could  not  help 
hoping  that  there  was,  in  the  entire  success  of  that  beau- 
tiful ceremony,  at  least  something  of  an  omen  of  what  is 
to  come.  How  could  I  help  feeling,  then,  as  I  often 
have  felt  ?  In  the  whole  of  that  proceeding,  I  was  a  very 
humble  instrument.  I  had  not  provided  the  flag.  I  had 


SPEECH    BEFORE     THE    LEGISLATURE.        209 

not  made  the  arrangements  for  elevating  it  to  its 
place ;  I  had  applied  but  a  very  small  portion  of  my 
feeble  strength  in  raising  it.  In  the  whole  transac- 
tion, I  was  in  the  hands  of  the  people  who  had 
arranged  it,  and,  if  I  can  have  the  same  generous  co- 
operation of  the  people  of  the  nation,  I  think  the  flag  of 
our  country  may  yet  be  kept  flaunting  gloriously.  It  is 
not  with  any  pleasure  that  I  contemplate  the  possibility 
that  a  necessity  may  arise  in  this  country  for  the  use  of 
the  military  arm.  .  While  I  am  exceedingly  gratified  to 
see  the  manifestation,  upon  your  streets,  of  your  mili- 
tary force  here,  and  exceedingly  gratified  at  your  promise 
here,  to  use  that  force  upon  a  proper  emergency- — while 
I  make  these  acknowledgments,  I  desire  to  repeat,  in 
order  to  preclude  any  possible  misconstruction,  that  I  do 
most  sincerely  hope  that  we  shall  have  no  use  for  them  ; 
that  it  will  never  become  their  duty  to  shed  blood,  and 
most  especially,  never  to  shed  fraternal  blood.  I  promise 
that,  so  far  as  I  may  have  wisdom  to  direct,  if  so  painful 
a  result  shall  in  any  wise  be  brought  about,  it  shall  be 
through  no  fault  of  mine. 

14 


210 


SPEECH    TO     THE    MAYOR. 


SPEECH 

TO  THE  MAYOR  AND  COMMON  COUNCIL  OF  WASHINGTON. 

MR.  MAYOR: 

I  thank  you,  and  through  you  the  municipal  authori- 
ties of  this  city  who  accompany  you,  for  this  welcome. 
And  as  it  is  the  first  time  in  my  life,  since  the  present 
phase  in  politics  has  presented  itself  in  this  country,  that 
I  have  said  anything  publicly  within  a  region  of  country 
where  the  institution  of  slavery  exists,  I  will  take  this 
occasion  to  say,  that  I  think  very  much  of  the  ill-feeling 
that  has  existed  and  still  exists  between  the  people  in  the 
sections  from  which  I  came  and  the  people  here,  is 
dependent  upon  a  misunderstanding  of  one  another.  I 
therefore  avail  myself  of  this  opportunity  to  assure  you, 
Mr.  Mayor,  and  all  the  gentlemen  present,  that  I  have 
not  now,  and  never  have  had,  any  other  than  as  kindly 
feelings  towards  you  as  the  people  of  my  own  section.  I 
have  not  now,  and  never  have  had,  any  disposition  to 
treat  you  in  any  respect  otherwise  than  as  my  own 
neighbors.  I  have  not  now  any  purpose  to  withhold 
from  you  any  of  the  benefits  of  the  Constitution,  under 
any  circumstances,  that  I  would  not  feel  myself  con- 
strained to  withhold  from  my  own  neighbors,  and  I  hope, 
in  a  word,  that  when  we  shall  become  better  acquainted 
— and  I  say  it  with  great  confidence — we  shall  like  each 
other  the  more. 

I  have  reached  this   city  of  Washington  under  cir- 


SPEECH    TO     THE    MAYOR.  211 

cumstances  considerably  differing  from  those  under 
which  any  other  man  has  ever  reached  it.  I  hope  that, 
if  things  shall  go  along  as  prosperously  as  I  believe  we 
all  desire  they  may,  I  may  have  it  in  my  power  to  remove 
something  of  this  misunderstanding ;  that  I  may  be 
enabled  to  convince  you,  and  the  people  of  your  section 
of  the  country,  that  we  regard  you  as  in  all  things  our 
equals,  and  in  all  things  entitled  to  the  same  respect  and 
the  same  treatment  that  we  claim  for  ourselves ;  that  we 
are  in  no  wise  disposed,  if  it  were  in  our  power,  to 
oppress  you,  to  deprive  you  of  any  of  your  rights  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  or  even  narrowly 
to  split  hairs  with  you  in  regard  to  these  rights,  but  are 
determined  to  give  you,  as  far  as  lies  in  our  hands,  all 
your  rights  under  the  Constitution — not  grudgingly,  but 
fully  and  fairly.  I  hope  that,  by  thus  dealing  with  you, 
we  will  become  better  acquainted,  and  be  better  friends. 


2 1  a  PROCLAMA  TION. 


PROCLAMATION, 

APRIL    15,    l86l. 

Now,  Therefore,  I,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  President  of 
the  United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested 
by  the  Constitution  and  the  laws,  have  thought  fit  to  call 
forth,  and  hereby  do  call  forth,  the  militia  of  the  several 
States  of  the  Union  to  the  aggregate  number  of  75,000, 
in  order  to  suppress  said  combination  and  to  cause  the 
laws  to  be  duly  executed.  The  details  for  this  object 
will  be  immediately  communicated  to  the  State  authori- 
ties through  the  War  Department. 

I  appeal  to  the  loyal  citizens  to  favor,  facilitate  and 
aid  this  effort  to  maintain  the  honor,  the  integrity,  and 
the  existence  of  our  National  Union,  and  the  perpetuity 
of  popular  government,  and  to  redress  wrongs  already 
long  enough  endured. 

I  deem  it  proper  to  say  that  the  first  service  assigned 
to  the  force  hereby  called  forth,  will  probably  be  to  re- 
possess the  forts,  places  and  property  which  have  been 
seized  from  the  Union,  and  in  every  event  the  utmost 
care  will  be  observed,  consistent  with  the  objects  afore- 
said, to  avoid  any  devastation,  any  destruction  of,  or  in- 
terference with  property,  or  any  disturbance  of  peaceful 
citizens  in  any  part  of  the  country ;  and  I  hereby  com- 
mand the  persons  composing  the  combination  aforesaid, 
to  disperse  and  retire  peaceably  to  their  respective 
abodes  within  twenty  days  from  this  date 


WILLIAM     WALKER.  213 


MY  personal  recollection  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  what 
I  have  seen  of  him,  in  and  about  Springfield,  dates 
from  about  the  year  1842,  and  was  almost  continuous 
until  he  left  for  Washington,  in  February,  1861  ;  and,  of 
course,  I  can  say  of,  or  concerning  him,  nothing  but  what 
might  be  said  by  hundreds  of  others  who  knew  him  as 
well,  and  much  better,  than  I  did.  There  was  one  trait 
in  Mr.  Lincoln's  character  that  I  can  never  forget;  that 
was  his  great  kindness  and  generous  sympathy  for  the 
young  men,  who  were  struggling  night  and  day,  to  reach  a 
place  at  the  bar,  as  lawyers.  I  well  remember  his  coming 
in  the  office  of  Col.  Baker,  where  I  studied  and  read  law, 
almost  every  afternoon  ;  and  with  his  cheerful  face,  and 
hearty  greeting,  to  myself  and  other  students,  "  How  are 
'you  this  afternoon,  boys  ?"  seat  himself,  and  take  up  some 
text-book,  that  some  of  us  were  reading,  and  give  us  a 
close  and  rigid  examination,  laughing  heartily  at  our  an- 
swers, at  times  ;  and  always  made  the  hour  he  spent  with 
us  interesting  and  instructive  ;  occasionally  relating,  to 
the  great  amusement  of  all  present,  an  anecdote  ;  and, 
after  the  hour  so  spent,  he  could  go  to  a  back  yard,  used 
by  the  students,  and  join  them  in  a  game  of  ball,  with  as 
much  zest  as  any  of  us.  But,  when  his  watch  told  him 
the  hour  was  out,  he  would  at  once  quit  the  game,  and 
bid  us  good-evening.  Many  years  after,  years  that  the 
writer  had  spent  in  the  active  practice  of  law,  I  met  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  was  associated  with  him  in  about  the  last 
case  he  had  any  connection  with.  This,  I  think,  was  in 


WILLIAAf     WALKER. 


the  year  1859,  an<^  after  his  name  had  become  a  house- 
hold word  in  all  the  land — after  he  had  won  imperishable 
renown  as  a  political  debater,  with  Senator  Douglas  ;  and 
while  his  great  mind  was  full  of  the  momentous  ques- 
tions then  agitating  the  public  mind — he  could  not,  and 
did  not,  forget  an  old  widow  lady  who  had  been,  long 
years  before,  kind  to  him,  while  he  was  struggling,  alone 
and  unaided,  in  a  new  country,  for  the  means  to  enable 
him  to  qualify  himself  for  the  high  position  afterward 
called  upon,  by  his  countrymen,  to  fill.  This  old  widow 
lady,  named  Armstrong,  known  by  almost  every  one  in 
Menard  Co.  as  Aunt  Hannah,  had  a  son — a  wild  boy  of 
about  twenty  years  of  age — who,  with  others,  became  in- 
volved in  a  difficulty  at  a  camp  meeting,  held  in  Mason 
Co.,  near  Salt  Creek,  resulting  in  the  killing  of  a  man 
named  Metzker.  Young  Armstrong,  and  another  young 
man,  were  indicted  for  murder  in  the  first  degree.  Aunt 
Hannah,  young  Armstrong's  mother,  employed  the 
writer,  and  a  lawyer  named  Dillworth,  to  defend  her  son. 
We  obtained  an  order  of  court,  allowing  separate  trials, 
and  took  a  change  of  venue,  on  the  part  of  Armstrong, 
to  Cass  Co.,  Illinois,  in  the  spring  of  '59.  Upon  the 
writer  reaching  Beardstown,  and  while  in  consultation 
with  my  associate,  at  the  hotel,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  an- 
nounced. Upon  entering,  he  gave  us  the  gratifying 
information  that  he  would,  at  the  request  of  Aunt  Han- 
nah, assist  us  in  the  case  of  her  son.  This  was  agree- 
able news  to  us.  We  furnished  Mr.  Lincoln  such  facts 
as  had  come  to  our  knowledge  ;  he  walked  across  the 
room  two  or  three  times,  was  again  seated,  and  asked  us 
for  our  line  of  defense,  and  the  kind  of  jury  we  thought 


WILLIAM     WALKER.  215 

of  taking.  We  were  in  favor  of  young  men.  He  asked 
our  reasons.  We  replied,  the  defendant  being  a  young 
man,  we  thought  the  sympathies  of  young  men  could  be 
more  easily  aroused  in  his  behalf.  Mr.  Lincoln  differed 
with  us,  and  requested  the  privilege  of  making  the  chal- 
lenges, which  we  accorded  to  him,  and  to  me.  The  most 
remarkable-looking  twelve  men  were  sworn,  that  I  had 
ever  seen  in  a  jury-box.  All  were  past  middle  life,  and 
the  more  strict  the  men  were  in  enforcing  obedience  to 
the  law,  and  the  good  order  of  society,  the  better  pleased 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  with  them.  The  trial  progressed,  evi- 
dence heard  and  instructions  given,  and  the  State  was 
heard  from  through  its  attorney.  Mr.  Lincoln  made  the 
closing  argument  for  the  defense.  A  grander,  or  a  more 
powerful  and  eloquent  speech,  never,  in  my  opinion,  fell 
from  the  lips  of  man  ;  and  when  he  closed,  there  was  not 
a  dry  eye  in  the  court-room.  The  young  man  was 
acquitted,  for  which  Mr.  Lincoln  would  not  receive  a 
cent.  I  have  made  this  mention  of  some  of  my  recol- 
lections of  Mr.  Lincoln,  longer,  perhaps,  than  I  ought — 
but  I  could  not  well  avoid  it — for,  taking  him  all  in  all,  I 
think  him  one  of  the  greatest  men  America  has  ever 
produced. 


r/~ 


LEXINGTON,  1882. 


2l6 


REPLY     TO     GOVERNOR    HICKS 


REPLY 

TO    GOVERNOR   HICKS   AND    MAYOR    BROWN. 

FOR  the  future,  troops  must  be  brought  here, 
but  I  make  no  point  of  bringing  them  through  Baltimore. 
Without  any  military  knowledge  myself,  of  course  I 
must  leave  details  to  General  Scott.  He  hastily  said 
this  morning,  in  the  presence  of  these  gentlemen, 
"  March  them  around  Baltimore  and  not  through  it." 
I  sincerely  hope  the  General,  on  fuller  reflection,  will 
consider  this  practical  and  proper,  and  that  you  will  not 
object  to  it  By  this,  a  collision  of  the  people  of  Balti- 
more with  the  troops  will  be  avoided,  unless  they  go  out 
of  their  way  to  seek  it.  I  hope  you  will  exert  your  in- 
fluence to  prevent  this.  Now  and  ever  I  shall  do  all  in 
my  power  for  peace,  consistently  with  the  maintenance  of 
the  government 

APRIL  20,  1 86 1. 


LEONARD     W.     VOLK.  217 


r  I  "HE  public  services  of  Mr.  Lincoln  are  well  known 
JL  to  the  world.  But  there  is  much  of  the  man, 
the  inner  man  and  his  real  characteristics — familiar 
only  to  his  neighbors  and  intimate  friends,  as  they  knew 
him,  before  he  was  so  suddenly  called  to  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States,  from  a  country  village,  where, 
and  near  which  most  of  his  life  had  been  spent,  to  assume 
the  "  cares  of  state,"  and  carry,  Atlas-like,  the  destinies 
of  the  Western  Continent  upon  his  brawny  and  hercu- 
lean shoulders.  The  world  at  large  will  never  know  as 
do  those  living  neighbors  and  friends  the  real  greatness 
of  the  man.  Personally,  I  had  but  little  intimate 
acquaintance  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  compared  to  what  many 
others  had,  and  what  I  observed  of  his  character  was 
mainly  while  sitting  to  me,  prior  to  his  nomination  in 
1860,  for  the  clay  model  of  his  bust.  But  he  impressed 
me,  before  I  ever  spoke  with  him,  with  a  feeling  akin  to 
reverence — a  feeling  of  affection.  He  was  just  the  man 
to  strike  with  favor  every  person  who  knew  toil  and  pri- 
vation— and  what  could  be  more  natural  ?  for  he  himself 
had  been  a  toiler  at  every  drudgery,  and  experienced  the 
severest  privations  from  earliest  boyhood  to  mature  man- 
hood. Its  effect  was  plainly  visible  in  his  figure,  in  the 
form  of  the  bones,  muscle  and  sinew,  in  his  motion  and 
in  his  speech.  He  was  a  plebeian  in  the  truest  sense,  and 
his  prototype  cannot  be  found  among  the  great  men  of 
ancient  or  modern  times.  He  has  been  compared  with 
King  Servius  Tullius,  but  might  with  more  propriety  be 


2i8  LEONARD     W.     VOL  FT 

compared  with  the  Czar  Alexander  II.  of  Russia,  who  by 
his  own  personal  will  freed  so  many  millions  of  serfs,  in 
opposition  to  the  wishes  of  his  nobles ;  while  the  former 
freed  no  slaves,  but  granted  some  elective  privileges  to 
the  plebeian  claims,  subject  always  to  the  approval  of  the 
patrician  senators,  and  built  a  five-mile  wall  around 
Rome.  But  neither  of  these  despots  (one  a  King  and 
the  other  an  Emperor)  possessed  the  characteristics  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  The  fact  that  all  three  were  assas- 
sinated does  not  signify  much  in  making  them  resem- 
blances of  each  other.  In  studying  the  marble  and 
bronze  portraits  of  the  rulers  and  great  men  of  ancient 
medieval  and  modern  times,  the  writer  has  found  none 
possessing  any  decided  resemblance  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
whose  features  are  distinctly  in  contrast  with  European 
types  and  may  properly  be  designated  as  purely  Amer- 
ican. Our  own  brief  history  gives  us  the  names  of  Jive 
distinctly  remarkable  men  who  were  Presidents  of  the 
United  States,  greater  than  all  others,  more  remarkable 
because  they  carved  out  and  achieved  their  own  immor- 
tality, and  none  but  one  of  these  five  referred  to  was  a 
college  graduate,  and  he,  by  his  own  indomitable  will, 
perseverance  and  industry,  through  extreme  poverty, 
alone  obtained  a  collegiate  education.  None  of  these 
five  men  were  sons  of  presidents,  nor  did  they  possess 
wealthy  and  distinguished  relatives  (except,  perhaps,  the 
first)  to  advance  and  place  them  in  high  stations.  No ! 
they  all  earned  their  honors  and  promotion  from  stage  to 
stage,  from  young  boyhood,  in  the  rough,  rugged  school 
of  experience,  toil  and  hardship,  which  ripened  and  fitted 
them  for. every  station  to  which  they  were  successively 


LEONARD     W.     VOLK.  219 

advanced  up  to  the  highest  and  proudest  positions  in  the 
land.  Nature  had  endowed  these  favorite  sons  with  a 
wealth  of  ideas,  a  wealth  of  self-reliance,  industry,  hon- 
esty, patience  and  patriotism,  far  greater  and  more  valu- 
able than  inherited  riches,  titles,  or  class  privileges. 
Imagine  Abraham  Lincoln,  as  a  sturdy  youth  in  the 
depths  of  the  primeval  forests  of  the  west,  alone  with  his 
axe,  felling  the  giant  trees,  lopping  off  the  limbs,  dividing 
the  trunks  in  regular  lengths,  then,  with  beetle  and 
wedges  splitting  them  into  rails,  now  and  then  wearily 
sitting  on  a  stump  or  log,  or  lying  on  the  ground  to  rest 
himself,  and  snatching  a  few  moments  to  study  a  book, 
or  perhaps  contemplating  the  solitude  of  the  forest,  while 
watching  the  birds  and  listening  to  their  wild  songs. 
Then,  in  the  grand  moon-lit  night,  while  floating  silently 
down  the  mighty  Mississippi  on  his  flat-boat,  he  doubt- 
less thought,  planned  and  dreamed  of  his  ambitious 
desire  to  rise  in  the  world  and  get  above  his  present 
lowly  condition.  Noble  and  ambitious  resolves  were 
weaving  in  his  young  brain.  He,  like  the  others  of  the 
immortal  five,  believed  in  himself  to  be  able  to  grapple 
with  the  difficulties  of  life  and  take  the  responsibilities 
thrust  upon  him  by  the  people.  It  was  fortunate  for  the 
fame  of  these  men  that  events  of  sufficient  magnitude 
occurred,  affording  the  opportunities  to  prove  to  the 
world  their  real  fitness,  talent  and  greatness  to  be 
imperishably  engraved  upon  history's  tablets  among  the 
immortal  men  of  all  ages.  If  the  ambitious  young  men 
of  the  present  and  future  generations  will  earnestly  study 
and  imitate  these  sublime  characters,  relying  as  they  did 
upon  their  own  honest,  patient  toil  and  privation  of  lux- 


22O 


LEONARD     W.     VOLK. 


uries,  instead  of  leaning  upon  others  or  watching  chances 
to  be  placed  high  by  those  temporarily  in  power — to  sud- 
denly tumble  from  unearned  stations — some  of  them 
may  reap  the  reward  and  honors  of  Washington,  Jack- 
son, Lincoln,  Grant  and  Garfield. 


CHICAGO,  1882. 


GEORGE    STONEMAN.  221 


is  and  can  be  but  one  opinion  regarding 
JL  the  life  and  work  performed  by  that  great  man 
Lincoln.  He  did  more  to  perpetuate  the  existence  of 
free  institutions  and  a  republican  form  of  government 
than  any  man  that  has  ever  lived,  and  the  debt  mankind 
owes  his  memory  can  never  be  repaid. 

He  had  but  one  fault.  He  was  too  sympathetic  and 
tender-hearted.  I  well  recollect  one  night  about  two 
o'clock  A.  M.  in  the  early  days  of  the  war,  that  I  was  with 
him  in  the  telegraph  office  at  General  McClellan's  head- 
quarters. He  arose  from  his  chair  to  leave,  straightened 
himself  up  and  remarked,  "  To-morrow  night  I  shall  have 
a  terrible  headache."  When  asked  the  cause  he  replied, 
"  To-morrow  is  hangman's  day  and  I  shall  have  to  act 
upon  death  sentences,"  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  sad 
and  sorrowful  expression  that  came  over  his  face.  It  is 
well  known  that  Congress  relieved  him  from  the  consid- 
eration of  death  sentences  for  desertion  and  other  capital 
offenses,  and  conferred  it  upon  army  commanders. 


SAN  GABRIEL,  1881. 


222  MESSAGE     TO     CONGRESS. 


MESSAGE  TO  CONGRESS 

ASSEMBLED    IN    EXTRA    SESSION,    JULY    4,    1 86 1. 

I  AM  most  happy  to  believe  that  the  plain  people  un- 
derstand and  appreciate  this.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that 
while  in  this,  the  Government's  hour  of  trial,  large  num- 
bers of  those  in  the  army  and  navy  who  have  been 
favored  with  the  offices,  have  resigned  and  proved  false 
to  the  hand  which  pampered  them,  not  one  common 
soldier  or  common  sailor  is  known  to  have  deserted  his 
flag.  Great  honor  is  due  to  those  officers  who  have  re- 
mained true  despite  the  example  of  their  treacherous 
associates,  but  the  greatest  honor  and  most  important 
fact  of  all,  is  the  unanimous  firmness  of  the  common 
soldiers  and  common  sailors.  To  the  last  man,  so  far  as 
known,  they  have  successfully  resisted  the  traitorous 
efforts  of  those  whose  commands  but  an  hour  before  they 
obeyed  as  absolute  law.  This  is  the  patriotic  instinct  of 
plain  people.  They  understand  without  an  argument 
that  the  destroying  the  Government  which  was  made 
by  Washington  means  no  good  to  them.  Our  popular 
Government  has  often  been  called  an  experiment.  Two 
points  in  it  our  people  have  settled :  the  successful  estab- 
lishing and  the  successful  administering  of  it.  One  still 
remains :  its  successful  maintenance  against  a  formidable 
internal  attempt  to  overthrow  it.  It  is  now  for  them  to 
demonstrate  to  the  world  that  those  who  can  fairly 
carry  an  election,  can  also  suppress  a  rebellion  ;  that 


MESSAGE     TO    CONGRESS.  223 

ballots  are  the  rightful  and  peaceful  successors 
of  bullets,  and  that  when  ballots  have  fairly  and 
constitutionally  decided,  there  can  be  no  successful 
appeal  back  to  bullets  ;  that  there  can  be  no  successful 
appeal  except  to  ballots  themselves  at  succeeding  elec- 
tions. Such  will  be  a  great  lesson  of  peace,  teaching 
men  that  what  they  cannot  take  by  an  election,  neither 
can  they  take  by  a  war,  teaching  all  the  folly  of  being 
the  beginners  of  a  war. 

As  a  private  citizen  the  Executive  could  not  have 
consented  that  these  institutions  shall  perish,  much  less 
could  he,  in  betrayal  of  so  vast  and  so  sacred  a  trust  as 
these  free  people  had  confided  to  him.  He  felt  that  he 
had  no  moral  right  to  shrink,  nor  even  to  count  the 
chances  of  his  own  life  in  what  might  follow. 

In  full  view  of  his  great  responsibility,  he  has  so  far 
done  what  he  has  deemed  his  duty.  You  will  now,  ac- 
cording to  your  own  judgment,  perform  yours.  He  sin- 
cerely hopes  that  your  views  and  your  actions  may  so 
accord  with  his  as  to  assure  all  faithful  citizens  who  have 
been  disturbed  in  their  rights,  of  a  certain  and  speedy 
restoration  to  them,  under  the  Constitution  and  laws, 
and  having  thus  chosen  our  cause  without  guile,  and  with 
pure  purpose,  let  us  renew  our  trust  in  God,  and  go  for- 
ward without  fear  and  with  manly  hearts. 


224 


PERSONAL     CONFERENCE. 


PERSONAL  CONFERENCE 

WITH   THE    REPRESENTATIVES     FROM     THE     BORDER    STATES, 

JULY    12,    l86l. 

AFTER  the  adjournment  of  Congress,  now  near,  1 
shall  have  no  opportunity  of  seeing  you  for  several 
months.  Believing  that  you  of  the  Border  States  hold 
more  power  for  good  than  any  other  equal  number  of 
members,  I  feel  it  a  duty  which  I  cannot  justifiably 
waive  to  make  this  appeal  to  you.  I  intend  no  reproach 
or  complaint  when  I  assure  you  that,  in  my  opinion,  if 
you  all  had  voted  for  the  resolution  in  the  gradual 
emancipation  message  of  last  March,  the  war  would  now 
be  substantially  ended.  And  the  plan  therein  proposed 
is  yet  one  of  the  most  potent  and  swift  means  of  ending 
it  Let  the  states  which  are  in  rebellion  see  definitely 
and  certainly  that  in  no  event  will  the  states  you  repre- 
sent ever  join  their  proposed  Confederacy,  and  they  can- 
not much  longer  maintain  the  contest.  But  you  cannot 
divest  them  of  their  hope  to  ultimately  have  you  with 
them  so  long  as  you  show  a  determination  to  perpetuate 
the  institution  within  your  own  states. 

If  the  war  continues  long,  as  it  must  if  the  object  be 
not  sooner  attained,  the  institution  in  your  states  will  be 
extinguished  by  mere  friction  and  abrasion — by  the  mere 
incidents  of  the  war.  It  will  be  gone,  and  you  will  have 
nothing  valuable  in  lieu  of  it.  Much  of  its  value  is  gone 
already.  How  much  better  for  you  and  for  your  people 


PERSONAL     CONFERENCE.  225 

to  take  the  step  which  at  once  shortens  the  war,  and 
secures  substantial  compensation  for  that  which  is  sure 
to  be  wholly  lost  in  any  other  event !  How  much  better 
to  thus  save  the  money  which  else  we  sink  forever  in  the 
war !  How  much  better  to  do  it  while  we  can,  lest  the 
war,  ere  long,  render  us  pecuniarily  unable  to  do  it ! 
How  much  better  for  you  as  sellers,  and  the  nation  as 
buyer,  to  sell  out  and  buy  out  that  without  which  the 
war  could  never  have  been,  than  to  sink  both  the  thing  to 
be  sold  and  the  price  of  it,  in  cutting  one  another's 
throats  ?  I  do  not  speak  of  emancipation  at  once,  but  of 
a  decision  at  once  to  emancipate  gradually. 

Upon  these  considerations,  I  have  again  begged  your 
attention  to  the  message  of  March  last.  Before  leaving 
the  Capitol,  consider  and  discuss  it  among  yourselves. 
You  are  patriots  and  statesmen,  and  as  such,  I  pray  you 
to  consider  this  proposition,  and,  at  the  least,  commend 
it  to  the  consideration  of  your  states  and  people.  As 
you  would  perpetuate  popular  government  for  the  best 
people  in  the  world,  I  beseech  you  that  you  do  in  no 
wise  omit  this.  Our  common  country  is  in  great  peril, 
demanding  the  loftiest  views  and  boldest  action  to  bring 
a  speedy  relief.  Once  relieved,  its  form  of  government  is 
saved  to  the  world ;  its  beloved  history  and  cherished 
memories  are  vindicated,  and  its  happy  future  fully  as- 
sured and  rendered  inconceivably  grand.  To  you,  more 
than  to  any  others,  the  privilege  is  given  to  assure  that 
happiness,  and  swell  that  grandeur,  and  to  link  your  own 
names  therewith  forever. 

15 


226  REPLY    TO    HORACE    GREELY. 


REPLY  TO  HORACE  GREELEY. 

My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  neither 
to  save  or  destroy  slavery. 

If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  un- 
less they  could  at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do  not 
agree  with  them.  If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save 
the  Union  unless  they  could  at  the  sams  time  destroy 
slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them.  My  paramount  object 
is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to  save  or  destroy 
slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any 
slave,  I  would  do  it.  If  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the 
slaves  I  would  do  it ;  and  if  I  could  do  it  by  freeing  some 
and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that.  What  I 
do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race  I  do  because  I  be- 
lieve it  helps  to  save  the  Union,  and  what  I  forbear,  I 
forbear  because  I  do  not  believe  it  helps  to  save  the 
Union.  I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  that 
what  I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause,  and  I  shall  do  more 
whenever  I  believe  doing  more  will  help  the  cause. 


.    J.     OGLESBY.  227 


r  I  ^"HERE  is  but  one  opinion  of  the  character  of 
JL  Abraham  Lincoln,  throughout  the  world.  No 
living  man  can  add  anything  to  his  fame.  It  will  be 
polished  by  the  wear  of  time,  to  a  luster  which  will 
eclipse  the  glory  of  all  men,  not  born  as  he  was,  to  the 
boon  of  immortality. 


DECATUR,  1880. 


228     REPLY     TO    A     RELIGIOUS    DELEGATION. 


REPLY  TO  A  RELIGIOUS  DELEGATION 

WHO     PRESENTED     A     MEMORIAL    REQUESTING    MR.    LINCOLN 
TO    ISSUE   A    PROCLAMATION    OF    UNIVERSAL 
EMANCIPATION. 

I  AM  approached  with  the  most  opposite  opinions 
and  advice,  and  that  by  religious  men,  who  are  equally 
certain  that  they  represent  the  divine  will.  I  am  sure 
that  either  the  one  or  the  other  class  is  mistaken  in  that 
belief,  and  perhaps  in  some  respects,  both.  I  hope  it  will 
not  be  irreverent  for  me  to  say  that  if  it  is  probable  that 
God  would  reveal  his  will  to  others,  on  a  point  so  con- 
nected with  my  duty,  it  might  be  supposed  he  would  re- 
veal it  directly  to  me ;  for,  unless  I  am  more  deceived  in 
myself  than  I  often  am,  it  is  my  earnest  desire  to  know 
the  will  of  Providence  in  this  matter,  and  if  I  can 
learn  what  it  is  I  will  do  it !  These  are  not,  however, 
the  days  of  miracles,  and  I  suppose  it  will  be  granted 
that  I  am  not  to  expect  a  direct  revelation.  I  must 
study  the  plain  physical  facts  of  the  case,  ascertain  what 
is  possible  and  learn  what  appears  to  be  wise  and  right 

The  subject  is  difficult,  and  good  men  do  not  agree. 
For  instance,  the  other  day  four  gentlemen  of  standing 
and  intelligence  from  New  York,  called  as  a  delegation  on  • 
business  connected  with  the  war ;  but  before  leaving  two 
of  them  earnestly  besought  me  to  proclaim  general 
emancipation,  upon  which  the  other  two  at  once  attacked 
them.  I  can  assure  you  that  the  subject  is  on  my  mind, 
by  day  and  night,  more  than  any  other.  Whatever  shall 
appear  to  be  God's  will  I  will  do. 


CYRUS    NORTHRQP.  229 


HIS  wisdom,  his  accurate  perceptions,  his  vigor  of 
intellect,  his  humor  and  his  unselfish  patriotism 
are  known  to  all.  But  what  impressed  me  even  more 
than  these  was  the  sweetness  of  his  whole  nature — his 
great  loving  heart.  It  was  this,  glorifying  his  other  great 
qualities,  that  so  endeared  him  to  the  people  and  caused 
his  death  to  be  mourned  with  such  an  unequaled  depth 
of  sorrow  and  abundance  of  tears.  No  man  can  take  his 
place  in  the  hearts  of  the  American  people. 


YALE  COLLEGE,  1882. 


INAUGURAL    ADDRESS. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS, 

DELIVERED    ON    THE    FOURTH    DAY    OF    MARCH,    1 86 1. 

APPREHENSION  seems  to  exist  among  the  people  of  the 
Southern  States  that  by  the  accession  of  a  Republican 
administration  their  property  and  their  peace  and  per- 
sonal security  are  to  be  endangered.  There  has  never 
been  any  reasonable  cause  for  such  apprehension.  Indeed, 
the  most  ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has  all  the  while 
existed  and  been  open  to  their  inspection.  It  is  found 
in  nearly  all  the  published  speeches  of  him  who  now 
addresses  you.  I  do  but  quote  from  one  of  those 
speeches  when  I  declare,  that  "  I  have  no  purpose, 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no 
lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so." 
Those  who  nominated  and  elected  me  did  so  with 
full  knowledge  that  I  had  made  this  and  many  similar 
declarations,  and  had  never  recanted  them. 

Before  entering  upon  so  grave  a  matter  as  the 
destruction  of  our  national  fabric,  with  all  its  benefits,  its 
memories  and  its  hopes,  would  it  not  be  wise  to  ascertain 
precisely  why  we  do  it  ?  Will  you  hazard  so  desperate  a 
step  while  there  is  any  possibility  that  any  portion  of  the 
ills  you  fly  from  have  no  real  existence  ?  Will  you,  while 
the  certain  ills  you  fly  to  are  greater  than  all  the  real  ones 
you  fly  from — will  you  risk  the  commission  of  so  fearful 
a  mistake  ? 


INAUGURAL    ADDRESS.  231 

Physically  speaking,  we  cannot  separate.  We  cannot 
remove  our  respective  sections  from  each  other,  nor  build 
an  impassable  wall  between  them.  A  husband  and  wife 
may  be  divorced,  and  go  out  of  the  presence  and  beyond 
the  reach  of  each  other,  but  the  different  parts  of  our 
country  cannot  do  this.  They  cannot  but  remain  face  to 
face ;  and  intercourse,  either  amicable  or  hostile,  must 
continue  between  them.  Is  it  impossible,  then,  to  make 
that  intercourse  more  advantageous  or  more  satisfactory 
after  separation  than  before  ?  Can  aliens  make  treaties 
easier  than  friends  can  make  laws  ?  Can  treaties  be  more 
faithfully  enforced  between  aliens  than  laws  can  among 
friends  ?  Suppose  you  go  to  war,  you  cannot  fight  always ; 
and  when,  after  much  loss  on  both  sides,  and  no  gain  on 
either,  you  cease  fighting,  the  identical  old  questions,  as 
to  terms  of  intercourse,  are  again  upon  you. 

The  Chief  Magistrate  derives  all  his  authority  from 
the  people,  and  they  have  conferred  none  upon  him  to 
fix  terms  for  the  separation  of  the  States.  The  people 
themselves  can  do  this  also  if  they  choose ;  but  the  Exec- 
utive, as  such,  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  His  duty  is 
to  administer  the  present  government  as  it  came  to  his 
hands,  and  to  transmit  it,  unimpaired  by  him,  to  his  suc- 
cessor. 

Why  should  there  not  be  a  patient  confidence  in  the 
ultimate  justice  of  the  people  ?  Is  there  any  better  or 
equal  hope  in  the  world  ?  In  our  present  differences,  is 
either  party  without  faith  of  being  in  the  right  ?  If  the 
Almighty  Ruler  of  nations,  with  his  eternal  truth  and 
justice,  be  on  your  side  of  the  North,  or  yours  of  the 


232  INAUGURAL    ADDRESS. 

South,  that  truth  and  that  justice  will  surely  prevail,  by  the 
judgment  of  this  great  tribunal  of  the  American  people. 

By  the  form  of  the  government  under  which  we  live, 
(the  same  people  have  wisely  given  their  public  servants 
but  little  power  for  mischief  ;  and  have,  with  equal  wisdom, 
provided  for  the  return  of  that  little  to  their  own  hands 
at  very  short  intervals.  While  the  people  retain  their 
virtue  and  vigilance,  no  administration,  by  any  extreme 
of  wickedness  or  folly,  can  very  seriously  injure  the  gov- 
ernment in  the  short  space  of  four  years. 

My  countrymen,  one  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well 
upon  this  whole  subject.  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by 
taking  time.  If  there  be  an  object  to  hurry  any  of  you  in 
hot  haste  to  a  step  which  you  would  never  take  deliber- 
ately, that  object  will  be  frustrated  by  taking  time ;  but 
no  good  can  be  frustrated  by  it.  Such  of  you  as  are  now 
dissatisfied  still  have  the  old  Constitution  unimpaired, 
and,  on  the  sensitive  point,  the  laws  of  your  own 
framing  under  it ;  while  the  new  administration  will  have 
no  immediate  power,  if  it  would,  to  change  either.  If  it  were 
admitted  that  you  who  are  dissatisfied  hold  the  right  side 
in  the  dispute,  there  still  is  no  single  good  reason  for  pre- 
cipitate action.  Intelligence,  patriotism,  Christianity,  and 
a  firm  reliance  on  Him  who  has  never  yet  forsaken  this 
favored  land,  are  still  competent  to  adjust,  in  the  best 
way,  all  our  present  difficulty. 

In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and 
not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The 
Government  will  not  assail  you. 

You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the 
aggressors.  You  have  no  oath  registered  in  Heaven  to 


INAUGURAL    ADDRESS. 


233 


destroy  the  Government ;  while  I  shall  have  the  most 
solemn  one  to  "  preserve,  protect  and  defend  "  it. 

I  am  loth  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends. 
We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have 
strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of  affection. 

The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every 
battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and 
hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  surely  they 
will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature. 


234 


ABOLISHING     SLA  VER  Y. 


ABOLISHING    SLAVERY   IN   THE   DISTRICT 
OF  COLUMBIA. 

I  HAVE  never  doubted  the  constitutional  authority  of 
Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  this  District,  and  I  have 
ever  desired  to  see  the  national  capital  freed  from  the 
institution  in  some  satisfactory  way.  Hence  there  has 
never  been,  in  my  mind,  any  question  upon  the  subject  ex- 
cept the  one  of  expediency,  arising  in  view  of  all  the  cir- 
cumstances. If  there  be  matters  within  and  about  this 
act  which  might  have  taken  a  course  or  shape  more  sat- 
isfactory to  my  judgment,  I  do  not  attempt  to  specify 
them.  I  am  gratified  that  the  two  principles  of  com- 
pensation and  colonization  are  both  recognized  and 
practically  applied  in  the  act. 

APRIL  16,  1862. 


A.     H.      GARLAND 


235 


I  NEVER  had  personally  an  opportunity  to  know 
or  study  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  my  ideas  of  him  are  made 
up  altogether  from  reading,  and  from  conversations  with 
prominent  gentlemen  who  knew  him  well.  From  these 
sources,  I  have  the  impression  firmly  fixed,  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln possessed  great  native  good  sense  and  a  well- 
balanced  head,  what  is  generally  called  "common  sense." 
He  had  an  intuitive  judgment  of  men,  and  he  studied  men 
closely  ;  with  these  he  combined  a  liberal  and  charita- 
ble judgment,  and  viewed  the  shortcomings  of  his  fellows 
with  leniency,  mercy  and  goodness  of  heart.  His  inten- 
tions were  good,  and,  as  I  think,  on  the  side  of  his  coun- 
try at  large,  and  I  am  of  the  opinion  but  few,  very  few, 
men  would  have  passed  through  the  ordeal  of  war,  and 
such  a  war,  as  successfully  as  he  did.  The  blow  that 
struck  him  down  inflicted  a  wound  upon  the  whole  coun- 
try. His  loss  to  the  country  was  severe  indeed,  for  I 
believe,  had  he  lived,  the  work  of  pacification,  or  quieting 
the  Southern  States  to  practical  relations  with  the  Union 
—  to  use  his  own  language  —  would  have  progressed  more 
smoothly,  and  been  consummated  in  less  time,  and  with 
less  expense,  less  bitterness  and  less  loss  to  all  parties. 

In  Mr.  Lincoln's  history  there  is  as  much  profound 
stimulus  to  the  young  men  of  the  country  who  desire  to 
secure  it,  as  in  that  of  any  man  who  has  figured  in  our 
annals. 


LITTLE  ROCK,  1882. 


FIKST    ANNUAL    MESSAGE. 


FIRST  ANNUAL    MESSAGE 

TO    CONGRESS,    DECEMBER    3,     1 86 1. 

THE  war  continues.  In  considering  the  policy  to  be 
adopted  for  suppressing  the  insurrection,  I  have  been 
anxious  and  careful  that  the  inevitable  conflict  for  this 
purpose  shall  not  degenerate  into  a  violent  and  remorse- 
less revolutionary  struggle.  I  have,  therefore,  in  every 
case  thought  it  proper  to  keep  the  integrity  of  the  Union 
prominent  as  the  primary  object  of  the  contest  on  our 
part,  leaving  all  questions  which  are  not  of  vital  military 
importance  to  the  more  deliberate  action  of  the  legis- 
lature. 

In  my  present  position,  I  could  scarcely  be  justified 
were  I  to  omit  raising  a  warning  voice  against  this 
approach  of  returning  despotism. 

It  is  not  needed  nor  fitting  here,  that  a  general  argu- 
ment should  be  made  in  favor  of  popular  institutions  ;  but 
there  is  one  point,  with  its  connections,  not  so  hackneyed 
as  most  others,  to  which  I  ask  a  brief  attention.  It  is 
the  effort  to  place  capital  on  an  equal  footing  with,  if  not 
above  labor,  in  the  structure  of  government.  It  is 
assumed  that  labor  is  available  only  in  connection  with 
capital  ;  that  nobody  labors  unless  somebody  else,  owning 
capital,  somehow,  by  the  use  of  it,  induces  him  to  labor. 
This  assumed,  it  is  next  considered  whether  it  is  best 
that  capital  shall  hire  laborers,  and  thus  induce  them  to 
work  by  their  own  consent,  or  buy  them,  and  drive  them 


FIRST    ANNUAL    MESSAGE.  237 

to  it  without  their  consent.  Having  proceeded' so  far,  it 
is  naturally  concluded  that  all  laborers  are  either  hired 
laborers  or  what  we  call  slaves.  And  further,  it  is 
assumed  that  whoever  is  once  a  hired  laborer  is  fixed  in 
that  condition  for  life. 

Now,  there  is  no  such  relation  between  capital  and 
labor  as  assumed ;  nor  is  there  any  such  thing  as  a  free 
man  being  fixed  for  life  in  the  condition  of  a  hired 
laborer.  Both  these  assumptions  are  false,  and  all  infer- 
ences from  them  are  groundless. 

Labor  is  prior  to,  and  independent  of  capital.  Capi- 
tal is  only  the  fruit  of  labor,  and  could  never  have  existed 
if  labor  had  not  first  existed.  Labor  is  the  superior  of 
capital,  and  deserves  much  the  higher  consideration. 
Capital  has  its  rights,  which  are  as  worthy  of  protection  as 
any  other  rights.  Nor  is  it  denied  that  there  is,  and 
probably  always  will  be,  a  relation  between  labor  and 
capital,  producing  mutual  benefits.  The  error  is  in  assum- 
ing that  the  whole  labor  of  a  community  exists  within 
that  relation.  A  few  men  own  capital,  and  that  few  avoid 
labor  themselves,  and,  with  their  capital,  hire  or  buy 
another  few  to  labor  for  them.  A  large  majority  belong 
to  neither  class — neither  work  for  others,  nor  have  others 
working  for  them.  In  most  of  the  Southern  States  a 
majority  of  the  whole  people,  of  all  colors,  are  neither 
slaves  n  )r  masters  ;  while  in  the  Northern  a  large  major- 
ity are  neither  hirers  nor  hired.  Men  with  their  families 
— wives,  sons,  and  daughters — work  for  themselves 
on  their  farms,  in  their  houses,  and  in  their  shops, 
taking  the  whole  product  to  themselves,  and  ask- 
ing no  favors  of  capital  on  the  one  hand,  nor  of  hired 


238  FIRST    ANNUAL    MESSAGE. 

laborers  or  slaves  on  the  other.  It  is  not  forgotten  that 
a  considerable  number  of  persons  mingle  their  own  labor 
with  capital — that  is,  they  labor  with  their  own  hands, 
and  also  buy  or  hire  others  to  labor  for  them  ;  but  this  is 
only  a  mixed,  not  a  distinct,  class.  No  principle  stated  is 
disturbed  by  the  existence  of  this  mixed  class. 

Again,  as  has  already  been  said,  there  is  not,  of 
necessity,  any  such  thing  as  the  free  hired  laborer  being 
fixed  to  that  condition  for  life.  Many  independent  men 
everywhere  in  these  States,  a  few  years  back  in  their 
lives,  were  hired  laborers.  The  prudent,  penniless  be- 
ginner in  the  world  labors  for  wages  awhile,  saves  a  sur- 
plus with  which  to  buy  tools  or  land  for  himself ;  then 
labors  on  his  own  account  another  while,  and  at  length 
hires  another  new  beginner  to  help  him.  This  is  the  just 
and  generous,  and  prosperous  system,  which  opens  the 
way  to  all,  gives  hope  to  all,  and  consequent  energy  and 
progress,  and  improvement  of  condition  to  all.  No  men 
living  are  more  worthy  to  be  trusted  than  those  who  toil 
up  from  poverty — none  less  inclined  to  take,  or  touch, 
aught  which  they  have  not  honestly  earned.  Let  them 
beware  of  surrendering  a  politicial  power  which  they  already 
possess,  and  which,  if  surrendered,  will  surely  be  used  to 
close  the  door  of  advancement  against  such  as  they,  and 
to  fix  new  disabilities  and  burdens  upon  them  till  all  of 
liberty  shall  be  lost 

The  struggle  of  to-day  is  not  altogether/^  to-day — it 
is  for  a  vast  future  also.  With  a  reliance  on  Providence, 
all  the  more  firm  and  earnest,  let  us  proceed  in  the  great 
task  which  events  have  devolved  upon  us. 


W.     B.     FRANKLIN.  239 


I  WAS  on  duty  in  Washington  in  1861,  when  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  inaugurated,  and  knew  him  quite  well. 
But  I  never  saw  him  after  about  the  first  part  of  Febru- 
ary, 1862.  In  the  short  term  of  my  acquaintance  with 
him,  I  was  always  impressed  with  the  great  ability  which 
he  displayed  in  his  view  of  the  situation  of  the  country  at 
that  time,  with  the  patience  which  he  showed  in  listening 
to  the  views  of  people  of  all  shades  of  opinion  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  various  subjects,  and  with  the  good  judgment 
which  in  my  opinion  he  displayed  in  coming  to  a  decision 
after  hearing  both  sides  of  a  question. 

No  one  could  have  known  him  well  at  that  time  with- 
out coming  to  the  conclusion  that  all  of  his  energy  and 
ability  were  devoted  to  bringing  the  country  through  the 
war  successfully.  All  side  issues  were  avoided,  nothing 
but  the  one  end  of  the  preservation  of  the  Union  was 
kept  in  view.  Beset  by  fanatics  of  all  sides  of  the  ques- 
tion, he  steered  clear  of  all  extremes,  and  his  patriotism 
and  good  sense  enabled  him  to  do  the  right  things  at  the 
right  times.  In  his  appointment  of  leading  general 
officers  at  this  time,  the  fitness  of  the  men  guided  him, 
and  I  know  a  case  in  which  he  appointed  a  man  against 
the  advice  of  his  Cabinet,  because  he  had  given  the  man 
a  promise  that  if  he  raised  a  brigade  he  should  be  made 
a  Brigadier-General,  believing  that  this  man  represented 
a  class  which  it  was  important  to  conciliate.  The  condition 
having  been  fulfilled,  he  appointed  the  man  notwithstand- 


240 


W.     B.     FRANKLIN, 


ing  the  earnest  remonstrance  of  the  Cabinet.  Such  actions 
gave  him  the  reputation  of  keeping  promises  after  he  had 
made  them,  a  very  different  one  from  that  of  the  ordinary 
politician.  His  untimely  death  was  a  misfortune  to  the 
country  from  which  it  has  not  yet  recovered. 


HARTFORD,  1882. 


ALEXANDER    H.     STEPHENS.  241 


I  KNEW  Mr.  Lincoln  well  and  intimately.  We 
were  both  members  of  the  Thirtieth  Congress,  that 
is,  from  1847  to  4th  March,  1849.  We  both  belonged  to 
the  Whig  organization  of  that  day,  and  were  both  ardent 
supporters  of  General  Taylor  to  the  Presidency  in  1848. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr.  Wm.  Ballard  Preston,  and  Mr.  Thos*. 
S.  Flournoy  of  Va.,  Mr.  Toombs  of  Georgia,  Mr.  E.  C. 
Cambell  of  Florida,  and  one  or  two  others,  and  myself 
formed  the  first  Congressional  Taylor  Club  ;  we  were 
known  as  the  Young  Indians,  who  by  our  extensive  corre- 
spondence organized  the  Taylor  movement  throughout 
the  country,  which  resulted  in  his  nomination  at  Phila- 
delphia. Mr.  Lincoln  was  careful  as  to  his  manners, 
awkward  in  his  speech,  but  was  possessed  of  a  very 
strong,  clear  and  vigorous  mind.  He  always  attracted 
the  riveted  attention  of  the  House  when  he  spoke  ;  his 
manner  of  speech  as  well  as  thought  was  original.  He 
had  no  model.  He  was  a  man  of  strong  convictions,* and 
was  what  Carlyle  would  have  called  an  earnest  man. 
He  abounded  in  anecdotes  ;  he  illustrated  everything  that 
he  was  talking  or  speaking  about  by  an  anecdote ;  his  an- 
ecdotes were  always  exceedingly  apt  and  pointed,  and 
socially  he  always  kept  his  company  in  a  roar  of  laughter. 
In  my  last  interview  with  him  at  the  celebrated  Hampton 
Roads  Conference  in  1865,  this  trait  of  his  character 
seemed  to  be  as  prominent  and  striking  as  ever.  He  was 
a  man  of  strong  attachments,  and  his  nature  overflowed 

16 


242  ALEXANDER    H.     STEPHENS. 

with  the  milk  of  human  kindness.  Widely  as  we  were 
separated  in  politics  in  the  latter  days  of  his  life,  yet  I 
ever  cherish  for  him  a  high  degree  of  personal  regard. 
I  cheerfully  give  this  tribute  to  his  memory. 


WASHINGTON,  1882. 


HUGH    /.    HASTINGS.— O.     W.    HOLMES.        243 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  the  greatest  Presi- 
/~V  dent  that  ever  occupied  the  Executive  chair,  and 
the  best  story-teller  ever  known  to  a  free  people. 


NEW  YORK,  1881. 


I      COULD  wish  that  fitting  words  would  offer  them- 
selves to  me  to  add  to  the  multitude  of  tributes 
to  the  memory  of  Abraham   Lincoln,  but  I  fear  that  I 
should  hardly  find  a  phrase  that  eulogy  has  not  applied  or 
a  sentiment  to  which  patriotism  has  not  given  expression. 


BOSTON,  1882. 


244  PROCLAMATION. 


PROCLAMATION 

RELATIVE  TO  GENERAL   HUNTER*S  ORDER  DECLARING  SLAVES 
WITHIN    HIS    DEPARTMENT    FREE. 

I  FURTHER  make  known,  that  whether  it  be  competent 
for  me,  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy, 
to  declare  the  slaves  of  any  State  or  States  free ;  and 
whether,  at  any  time  or  in  any  case,  it  shall  have  become 
a  necessity  indispensable  to  the  maintenance  of  the  gov- 
ernment to  exercise  such  supposed  powers,  are  questions 
which,  under  my  responsibility,  I  reserve  to  myself,  and 
which  I  cannot  feel  justified  in  leaving  to  the  decision  of 
commanders  in  the  field. 

The  United  States  ought  to  co-operate  with  any  State 
which  may  adopt  a  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery,  giving 
to  such  State  earnest  expression  to  compensate  for  its 
inconveniences,  public  and  private,  produced  by  such 
change  of  system. 

I  beg  of  you  a  calm  and  enlarged  consideration  of 
them,  ranging,  if  it  may  be,  far  above  partisan  and  per- 
sonal politics.  This  proposal  makes  common  object, 
casting  no  reproaches  upon  any.  It  acts  not  the  Pharisee. 
The  change  it  contemplates  would  come  gently  as  the 
dews  of  Heaven,  not  rending  or  wrecking  anything. 
Will  you  not  embrace  it  ?  So  much  good  has  not  been 
done,  by  one  effort,  in  all  past  time,  as,  in  the  providence 
of  God,  it  is  now  your  high  privilege  to  do.  May  the 
vast  future  not  have  to  lament  that  you  have  neglected  it ! 

MAY  i  Qth,  1862. 


ANDREW    SHUMAN.  245 


I  KNEW  him  as  a  citizen,  a  lawyer  and  a  politician, 
and  I  knew  him  afterwards  as  the  President  of 
the  United  States.  His  most  striking  characteristic  was 
his  simplicity,  next  to"  that  was  his  independence  of 
thought  and  self-reliance  of  reason.  He  had  the  heart  of 
a  child  and  the  intellect  of  a  philosopher.  A  patriot 
without  guile,  a  politician  without  cunning  or  selfishness, 
a  statesman  of  practical  sense  rather  than  finespun 
theory.  The  more  I  contemplate  the  history  of  his  pub- 
lic life  and  services,  the  more  I  study  his  words,  his 
works  and  the  peculiarities  of  his  character,  the  more  I  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  specially 
inspired,  called  and  led  by  Providence  to  be  the  savior  of 
our  nation. 


CHICAGO.  1880. 


LINCOLN  READING    THE  PROCLAMATION. 


LINCOLN    READING    THE    EMANCIPATION 
PROCLAMATION    TO  HIS     CABINET, 

SEPTEMBER    22. 

GENTLEMEN  : — I  have,  as  you  are  aware,  thought  a 
great  deal  about  the  relation  of  this  war  to  slavery,  and 
you  all  remember  that  several  weeks  ago  I  read  to  you 
an  order  I  had  prepared  upon  the  subject,  which,  on  ac- 
count of  objections  made  by  some  of  you,  was  not  issued. 
Ever  since  then  my  mind  has  been  much  occupied  with 
this  subject,  and  I  have  thought  all  along  that  the  time  for 
acting  on  it  might  probably  come.  I  think  the  time  has 
come  now  ;  I  wish  it  was  a  better  time.  I  wish  that  we  were 
in  a  better  condition.  The  action  of  the  army  against  the 
rebels  has  not  been  quite  what  I  should  have  best  liked, 
but  they  have  been  driven  out  of  Maryland,  and  Penn- 
sylvania is  no  longer  in  danger  of  invasion. 

When  the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,  I  determined, 
as  soon  as  it  should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland,  to 
issue  a  proclamation  of  emancipation,  such  as  I  thought 
most  likely  to  be  useful.  I  said  nothing  to  any  one, 
but  I  made  a  promise  to  myself  and  (hesitating  a 
little),  to  my  Maker.  The  rebel  army  is  now  driven 
out,  and  am  going  to  fulfill  that  promise.  I  have  got  you 
together  to  hear  what  I  have  written  down.  I  do  not 
wish  your  advice  about  the  main  matter,  for  that  I  have 
determined  for  myself.  This  I  say  without  intending 
anything  but  respect  for  any  one  of  you.  But  I  already 


LINCOLN   READING    THE   PROCLAMATION.    247 

know  the  views  of  each  on  this  question.  They  have 
been  heretofore  expressed,  and  I  have  considered  them 
jas  thoroughly  and  carefully  as  I  can.  What  I  have 
written  is  that  which  my  reflections  have  determined  me 
to  say.  If  there  is  anything  in  the  expressions  I  use,  or 
in  any  minor  matter  which  any  one  of  you  think  had  best 
be  changed,  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  your  suggestions. 
One  other  observation  I  will  make.  I  know  very  well 
that  many  others  might,  in  this  matter  as  in  others,  do 
better  than  I  can  ;  and  if  I  was  satisfied  that  the  public 
confidence  was  more  fully  possessed  by  any  one  of  them 
than  by  me,  and  knew  of  any  constitutional  way  in  which 
he  could  be  put  in  my  place,  he  should  have  it.  I  would 
gladly  yield  to  him.  But  though  I  believe  I  have  not  so 
much  of  the  confidence  of  the  people  as  I  had  some  time 
since,  I  do  not  know  that,  all  things  considered,  any  other 
person  has  more  ;  and,  however  this  may  be,  there  is 
no  way  in  which  I  can  have  any  other  man  put  where 
I  am.  I  am  here  ;  I  must  do  the  best  I  can  and  bear  the 
responsibility  of  taking  the  course  which  I  feel  I  ought 
to  take. 


24B 


REPLY   TO   THE    RESOLUTIONS. 


REPLY    TO     THE    RESOLUTIONS    OF    THE 

EAST    BALTIMORE    METHODIST 

CONFERENCE 

OF    l862. 

THESE  kind  words  of  approval,  coming  from  so  numer- 
ous a  body  of  intelligent  Christian  people,  and  so  free  from 
all  suspicion  of  sinister  motives,  are  indeed  encouraging 
to  me.  By  the  help  of  an  all-wise  Providence,  I  shall 
endeavor  to  do  my  duty,  and  I  shall  expect  the  continu- 
ance of  your  prayers  for  a  right  solution  of  our  national 
difficulties,  and  the  restoration  of  our  country  to  peace 
and  prosperity. 


EMERSON    BENNETT.  249 


ON  several  occasions,  during  our  unfortunate  interne- 
cine troubles,  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  visit  Washington 
and  have  personal  interviews  with  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
my  impression  of  him  then  was,  and  still  is,  that 
he  possessed  a  heart,  which,  in  its  great  humane 
reach,  would  take  in  all  mankind ;  that  he  was 
a  man  of  earnest,  honest,  single  purpose ;  entirely 
unostentatious,  free  from  petty  jealousy  and  ignoble 
ambition ;  willing  to  live  and  labor  for  the  good 
of  mankind ;  full  of  genuine  sympathy ;  thinking  of 
everybody  except  himself  ;  and  who  felt  as  if  he  were 
sent  to  perform  a  mission  on  earth,  that  must  hasten  to 
a  completion  in  order  that  he  might  be  removed  to  an- 
other scene  of  action.  He  was  intellectual  beyond  most 
men,  with  a  grand  reach  of  thought,  which  could  grasp  a 
great  subject  and  comprehend  it  in  its  entirety,  and  then, 
with  a  few  well-chosen  words  he  could  so  simplify  as  to 
make  it  plain  and  clear  to  the  most  ordinary  understand- 
ing. Along  with  a  gentle,  tender,  yearning  sympathy,  he 
had  the  firmness  of  a  rock  and  the  courage  of  a  lion. 
No  one  in  the  right  ever  feared  to  meet  him,  and  no  one 
in  the  wrong  could  stand  unmoved  before  his  deep, 
searching  gaze.  He  was  evidently  a  man  of  destiny — 
here  for  a  purpose — to  be  removed  with  the  end  of  his 
mission.  Simple,  sincere,  honest,  earnest,  upright,  just, 


250 


EMERSON    BENNETT. 


pure,  noble  and  good,  he  was  one  of  the  best  men  who 
ever  lived  to  bless  mankind,  or  died  a  martyr  in  a  holy 
cause. 


PHILADELPHIA,  1882. 


EUGENE    J.    HALL.  251 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

O   HONORED  name,  revered  and  undecaying, 
Engraven  on  each  heart,  O  soul  sublime! 
That,  like  a  planet  through  the  heavens  straying, 
Outlives  the  wreck  of  time  ! 

• 

O  rough  strong  soul,  your  noble  self-possession 

Is  unforgotten.     Still  your  work  remains. 
You  freed  from  bondage  and  from  vile  oppression 
A  race  in  clanking  chains. 

O  furrowed  face,  beloved  by  all  the  nation  ! 
O  tall  gaunt  form,  to  memory  fondly  dear  ! 
O  firm  bold  hand,  our  strength  and  our  salvation  ! 
O  heart  that  knew  no  feaj;  ! 

Lincoln,  your  manhood  shall  survive  forever, 
Shedding  a  fadeless  halo  round  your  name. 
Urging  men  on,  with  wise  and  strong  endeavor, 
To  bright  and  honest  fame  ! 

Through  years  of  care,  to  rest  and  joy  a  stranger, 

You  saw  complete  the  work  you  had  begun, 
Thoughtless  of  threats,  nor  heeding  death  or  danger, 
You  toiled  till  all  was  done. 

You  freed  the  bondman  from  his  iron  master, 

You  broke  the  strong  and  cruel  chains  he  wore, 
You  saved  the  Ship  of  State  from  foul  disaster 
And  brought  her  safe  to  shore. 

You  fell !  An  anxious  nation's  hopes  seemed  blighted, 

While  millions  shuddered  at  your  dreadful  fall  \ 
But  God  is  good!  His  wondrous  hand  has  righted 
And  reunited  all. 


252 


EUGENE    J.     HALL. 


You  fell,  but  in  your  death  you  were  victo.'ious  ; 

To  moulder  in  the  tomb  your  form  has  gone, 
While  through  the  world  your  great  soul  grows  more  glorious 
As  years  go  gliding  on  ! 

All  hail,  great  Chieftain  !  Long  will  sweetly  cluster 

A  thousand  memories  round  your  sacred  name, 
Nor  time,  nor  death  shall  dim  the  spotless  luster 
That  shines  upon  your  fame. 


CHICAGO,   1882. 


GEO.     W.    JULIAN— PHILIP    SHAFF.  253 


H 


E  combined  the  integrity  of  Washington  with  the 
humanity  of  Wilberforce. 


IRVINGTON,  1880. 


NEXT  to  Washington,  the  Father  of  our  Independ- 
ence, stands  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  martyr  of  our 
Union,  in  the  line  of  our  Presidents. 


NEW  YORK,  1882. 


254      TO     THE    OLD    SCHOOL    PRESBYTERIANS. 


TO     THE    SYNOD    OF    THE     OLD    SCHOOL 
PRESBYTERIANS    OF    BALTIMORE, 

WHO    WAITED    UPON    HIM    IN   A   BODY. 

I  SAW,  upon  taking  my  position  here,  I  was  going  to 
have  an  administration,  if  an  administration  at  all,  of 
extraordinary  difficulty.  It  was  without  exception  a 
time  of  the  greatest  difficulty  this  country  ever  saw.  I 
was  early  brought  to  a  lively  reflection,  that  nothing  in 
my  power  whatever,  or  others,  to  rely  upon,  would  suc- 
ceed, without  direct  assistance  of  the  Almighty.  I  have 
often  wished  that  I  was  a  more  devout  man  than  I 
am;  nevertheless,  amid  the  greatest  difficulties  of  my 
administration,  when  I  could  not  see  any  other  resort,  I 
would  place  my  whole  reliance  in  God,  knowing  all 
would  go  well,  and  that  he  would  decide  for  the  right 


ALBERT    PIKE.  255 


TO  say  that  he  was  pre-eminently  an  honest  man, 
a  frank,  sincere,  outspoken  man,  who  deceived 
no  one,  wronged  no  one,  cajoled  no  one  ;  that  he 
was  a  great,  strong,  fearless  man  ;  that  he  was  unsel- 
fishly patriotic,  a  worshiper  of  the  constitution  ac- 
cording to  the  old  Whig  interpretation  of  it,  a  de- 
votee of  the  Union,  an  ardent  lover  of  his  whole 
country,  hating  no  one,  desiring  to  punish  no  one  ; 
yearning  to  see  the  Union  restored,  and  the  old  good 
will  and  good  humor  return  to  bless  the  land  —  to 
say  all  this  is  only  to  say  what  is  testified  to  by  a 
cloud  of  witnesses,  what  no  one  anywhere  will  now  not 
gladly  admit.  He  occupied,  I  think,  a  larger  place  in  the 
affections  of  the  people  than  any  of  the  great  men  who 
preceded  him,  and  he  will  have  it,  I  think,  in  the  affec- 
tion of  the  generations  that  are  to  come.  He  would 
have  said,  if  questioned,  that  he  greatly  preferred  to  be 
so  remembered.  He  endeared  himself  to  the  people  by 
ways  and  practices  and  observances  all  worthy  and 
honorable,  generous  and  fair;  and  kindly  memories  of 
him  are  as  general  among  those  who,  struggling  to  a- 
chieve  political  independence,  owed  chiefly  to  him  their 
defeat,  as  they  are  among  the  men  of  the  States  whose 
armies  obeyed  orders  and  maintained  the  Union. 


WASHINGTON,  1882. 


256  REPLY     TO     THE    LUTHERANS. 


REPLY     TO     THE     COMMITTEE     OF     THE 
LUTHERAN  SYNOD  OF  1862. 

I  WELCOME  here  the  representatives  of  the  Evangeli- 
cal Lutherans  of  the  United  States,  I  accept  with  grati- 
tude their  assurances  of  the  sympathy  and  support  of 
that  enlightened,  influential,  and  loyal  class  of  my  fellow- 
citizens  in  an  important  crisis,  which  involves,  in  my 
judgment,  not  only  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  our 
own  dear  land,  but  in  a  large  degree  the  civil  and  religious 
liberties  of  mankind  in  many  countries  and  through  many 
ages.  You  well  know,  gentlemen,  and  the  world  knows, 
how  reluctantly  I  accepted  this  issue  of  battle  forced  up- 
on me,  on  my  advent  to  this  place,  by  the  internal  ene- 
mies of  our  country.  You  all  know,  the  world  knows 
the  forces  and  the  resources  the  public  agents  have 
brought  into  employment  to  sustain  a  government  against 
which  there  has  been  brought  not  one  complaint  of 
real  injury  committed  against  society  at  home  or 
abroad.  You  all  may  recollect  that  in  taking  up  the 
sword  thus  forced  into  our  hands,  this  government  ap- 
pealed to  the  prayers  of  the  pious  and  the  good,  and 
declared  that  it  placed  its  whole  dependence  upon 
the  favor  of  God.  I  now  humbly  and  reverently,  in 
your  presence,  reiterate  the  acknowledgment  of  that 
dependence,  not  doubting  that,  if  it  shall  please  the 
Divine  Being  who  determines  the  destinies  of  nations, 
that  this  shall  remain  a  united  people,  they  will, 
humbly  seeking  the  divine  guidance,  make  their  prolonged 
national  existence  a  source  of  new  benefit  and  conditions 
of  mankind. 


ABRAM    S.    HEWITT. 


257 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  essentially  a  thinker 
/~\  who  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions.  He  was 
a  patriot  who  was  ever  willing  to  make  personal  sacrifices 
for  his  patriotism.  He  was,  therefore,  a  man  of  action  as 
well  as  of  reflection.  His  character  was  based  upon 
truth,  and  having  been  placed  by  fortune  in  the  proper 
sphere  of  action,  he  showed  he  was  a  truly  great  man. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 

17 


2.«;8  SECOND    ANNUAL    MESSAGE. 


SECOND  ANNUAL  MESSAGE 

TO   CONGRESS,    DECEMBER    I,    1 862. 

PHYSICALLY  speaking,  we  cannot  separate.  We  can- 
not remove  our  respective  sections  from  each  other,  nor 
build  an  impassable  wall  between  them.  A  husband  and 
wife  may  be  divorced  and  go  out  of  the  presence  and  be- 
yond the  reach  of  each  other ;  but  the  different  parts  of 
our  country  cannot  do  this.  They  cannot  but  remain 
face  to  face ;  and  intercourse,  either  amicable  or  hostile, 
must  continue  between  them.  Is  it  possible,  then,  to 
make  that  intercourse  more  advantageous  or  more  satis- 
factory after  separation  than  before  f  Can  aliens  make 
treaties  easier  than  friends  can  make  laws  ?  Can  treaties 
be  more  faithfully  enforced  between  aliens  than  laws  can 
among  friends  ?  Suppose  you  go  to  war,  you  cannot  fight 
always ;  and  when,  after  much  loss  on  both  sides  and  no 
gain  on  either,  you  cease  fighting,  the  identical  old  ques- 
tions, as  to  terms  of  intercourse,  are  again  upon  you. 

There  is  no  line,  straight  or  crooked,  suitable  for  a 
national  boundary,  upon  which  to  divide.  Trace 
through,  from  east  to  west,  upon  the  line  between  the  free 
and  slave  country,  and  we  shall  find  a  little  more  than 
one-third  of  its  length  are  rivers,  easy  to  be  crossed,  and 
populated — or  soon  to  be  populated  — thickly  upon  both 
sides  ;  while  nearly  all  its  remaining  length  are  merely 
surveyors'  lines,  over  which  people  may  walk  back  and 
forth  without  any  consciousness  of  their  presence.  NQ 


SECOND    ANNUAL    MESSAGE.  259 

part  of  this  line  can  be  made  any  more  difficult  to  pass 
by  writing  it  down  on  paper  or  parchment  as  a  national 
boundary.  The  fact  of  separation,  if  it  comes,  gives  up, 
on  the  part  of  the  seceding  section,  the  fugitive  slave 
clause,  along  with  all  other  Constitutional  obligations 
upon  the  section  seceded  from,  while  I  should  expect  no 
treaty  stipulation  would  ever  be  made  to  take  its  place. 

Is  it  doubted,  then,  that  the  plan  I  propose,  if  adopted, 
would  shorten  the  war,  and  thus  lessen  its  expenditure  of 
money  and  of  blood  ?  Is  it  doubted  that  it  would  restore 
the  national  authority  and  national  prosperity,  and  per- 
petuate both  indefinitely?  Is  it  doubted  that  we  here 
— Congress  and  Executive — can  secure  its  adoption  ? 
Wili  not  the  good  people  respond  to  a  united  and  earnest 
appeal  from  us  ?  Can  we,  can  they,  by  any  other  means, 
so  certainly  or  so  speedily,  assure  these  vital  objects  ? 
We  can  succeed  only  by  concert.  It  is  not,  "  can  any  of 
us  imagine  better  ?"  but  "  can  we  all  do  better  ?"  Object 
whatsoever  is  possible,  still  the  question  recurs,  "  can  we 
do  better?"  The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inade- 
quate to  the  stormy  present.  The  occasion  is  piled  high 
with  difficulty,  and  we  must  rise  with  the  occasion.  As 
our  case  is  new,  so  we  must  think  anew,  and  act  anew. 
We  must  disenthrall  ourselves,  and  then  we  shall  save  our 
country. 

Fellow-citizens,  we  cannot  escape  history.  We,  of  this 
Congress  and  this  administration,  will  be  remembered  in 
spite  of  ourselves.  No  personal  significance  or  insignifi- 
cance can  spare  one  or  another  of  us.  The  fiery  trial 
through  which  we  pass  will  light  us  down,  in  honor  or 
dishonor,  to  the  latest  generation.  We  say  we  are  for  the 


«6o  SECOND    ANNUAL    MESSAGE. 

Union.  The  world  will  not  forget  that  we  say  this. 
We  know  how  to  save  the  Union.  The  world  knows  we 
do  know  how  to  save  it.  We — even  we  here — hold  the 
power  and  bear  the  responsibility.  In  giving  freedom  to 
the  slave,  we  assure  freedom  to  the  free — honorable  alike 
in  what  we  give  and  what  we  preserve.  We  shall  nobly 
save,  or  meanly  lose,  the  last,  best  hope  of  earth.  Other 
means  may  succeed  ;  this  could  not  fail.  The  way  is 
plain,  peaceful,  generous,  just — a  way  which,  if  followed, 
the  world  will  forever  applaud,  and  God  must  forever 
bless. 

A  return  to  specie  payments,  however,  at  the  earliest 
period  compatible  with  due  regard  to  all  interests  con- 
cerned, should  ever  be  kept  in  view.  Fluctuations  in  the 
value  of  currency  are  always  injurious,  and  to  reduce 
these  fluctuations  to  the  lowest  possible  point  will  always 
be  a  leading  purpose  in  wise  legislation.  Convertibility 
— prompt  and  certain  convertibility — into  coin  is  generally 
acknowledged  to  be  the  best  and  surest  safeguard  against 
them  ;  and  it  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  a  circulation 
of  United  States  notes,  payable  in  coin  and  sufficiently 
large  for  the  wants  of  the  people,  can  be  permanently, 
usefully  and  safely  maintained. 


A.     CLEVELAND     COXE.  261 


E^COLN  was  as  evidently  raised  up  of  God  for 
1  86  1,  as  Washington  was  for  1776.  Two  more 
unlike  each  other  could  hardly  be  produced  in  the  his- 
tory of  a  common  country,  among  those  who  have  identi- 
fied themselves  with  its  progress  ;  but  their  common 
elements  of  character  were  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  (so-called),  a  love  of  freedom  and  of  law  ;  percep- 
tions of  the  right  thing  to  do  and  of  the  right  time  to  do 
it  ;  all  regulated  by  a  sober  faith  in  divine  Providence, 
and  a  willingness  to  be  His  instrument  for  good  to  man- 
kind. 


BUFFALO,  1882.  . 


262  EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION. 


EMANCIPATION   PROCLAMATION, 

JANUARY    FIRST,  1863. 

WHEREAS,  on  the  226.  day  of  September,  in  the  year 
of  our  Lord,  1862,  a  proclamation  was  issued  by  the  Pres- 
ident of  the  United  States,  containing,  among  other  things, 
the  following,  to  wit :  That  on  the  first  day  of  January, 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  1863,  all  persons  held  as  slaves, 
within  any  State  or  designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people 
whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United 
States,  shall  be  thenceforth  and  forever  free,  and  the 
Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  including 
the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize 
and  maintain  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no 
act  or  acts  to  repress  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any 
effort  they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom  ;  that  the 
Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid, 
issue  a  proclamation,  designating  the  States  and  parts 
of  States,  if  any,  in  which  the  people  therein,  respect- 
ively, shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United 
States,  and  the  fact  that  any  State  or  the  people 
thereof,  shall,  on  that  day,  be  in  good  faith  rep- 
resented in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  by  mem- 
bers chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a  majority 
of  the  qualified  voters  of  such  States  shall  have  partici- 
pated, shall,  in  the  absence  of  strong  countervailing  testi- 
mony, be  deemed  conclusive  evidence  that  such  State  and 
the  people  thereof  are  not  in  rebellion  against  the  United 
States. 


EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION.  263 

Now  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the 
United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  vested  in  me  as 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  in  a  time  of 
actual  armed  rebellion  against  the  authority  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  as  a  fit  and  necessary  war 
measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion,  do,  on  this 
first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  1863,  and  in 
accordance  with  my  purpose  so  to  do,  publicly  proclaimed 
for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred  days  from  the  date  of 
the  first  above-mentioned  order,  designate  as  the  States 
and  parts  of  States  therein,  the  people  whereof,  respec- 
tively, are  this  day  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
the  following,  to  wit :  Arkansas,  Texas  and  Louisiana 
(except  the  parishes  of  St.  Bernard,  Plaquemine,  Jeffer- 
son, St.  John,  St.  Charles,  St.  James,  Ascension,  Assump- 
tion, Terrebonne,  La  Fourche,  St.  Mary,  St.  Martin  and 
Orleans,  including  the  city  of  New  Orleans),  Mississippi, 
Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  North  Caro- 
lina and  Virginia  (except  the  forty-eight  counties  desig- 
nated as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the  counties  of  Berkley, 
Accomac,  Northampton,  Elizabeth  City,  York,  Princess 
Anne  and  Norfolk,  including  the  cities  of  Norfolk  and 
Portsmouth),  which  excepted  parts  are  for  the  present  left 
precisely  as  if  this  proclamation  were  not  issued  ;  and  by 
virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose  aforesaid,  I  do 
order  and  declare  that  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within 
designated  States,  or  parts  of  States,  are,  and  hencefor- 
ward shall  be  free,  and  that  the  Executive  Government 
of  the  United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval  au- 
thorities thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom 
of  the  said  persons  ;  and  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  peo- 


264  EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION. 

pie  so  declared  to  be  free,  to  abstain  from  all  violence, 
unless  in  necessary  self-defense,  and  I  recommend  to 
them  that,  in  all  cases  where  allowed,  they  labor  faith- 
fully for  reasonable  wages  ;  and  I  further  declare  and 
make  known  that  such  persons  of  suitable  condition  will 
be  received  into  the  armed  service  of  the  United  States, 
to  garrison  forts,  positions,  stations  and  other  places,  and 
to  man  vessels  of  all  sorts  in  said  service.  And  upon  this, 
sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice,  warranted  by  the 
Constitution  upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  con- 
siderate judgment  of  mankind,  and  the  gracious  favor  of 
Almighty  God. 

In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand  and 
caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

Done  at  the  City  of  Washington,  this  first  day  of  Jan- 
uary, in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  1863,  and  of  the  Indepen- 
dence of  the  United  States  of  America,  the  eighty* 
seventh. 


FRED'K    DOUG£J,S&  265 


A  GREAT  man,  tender  of  heart,  strong  of 
nerve,  of  boundless  patience  and  broadest  sym- 
pathy, with  no  motive  apart  from  his  country,  he 
could  receive  counsel  from  a  child  and  give  counsel  to  a 
sage.  The  simple  approached  him  with  ease,  and  the 
learned  approached  him  with  deference.  Take  him  for 
all  in  all,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  one  of  the  noblest,  wisest 
and  best  men  I  ever  knew. 


() 

WASHINGTON,  1880. 


266  REPLY    TO    AN    INVITATION. 


REPLY 

I 

TO   AN   INVITATION   TO   PRESIDE    OVER   A   MEETING  OF   THE 
CHRISTIAN    COMMISSION,  HELD    IN    WASH- 
INGTON,   FEBRUARY    22,     1863. 

WHILE,  for  reasons  which  I  deem  sufficient,  I  must 
decline  to  preside,  I  cannot  withhold  my  approval  of  the 
meeting  and  its  worthy  objects.  Whatever  shall  be  sin- 
cerely, and  in  God's  name,  devised  for  the  good  of  the 
soldiers  and  seamen  in  their  hard  spheres  of  duty,  can 
scarcely  fail  to  be  blessed.  And  whatever  shall  tend  to 
turn  our  thoughts  from  the  unreasoning  and  uncharitable 
passions,  prejudices,  and  jealousies  incident  to  a  great 
national  trouble  such  as  ours,  and  to  fix  them  on  the  vast 
and  long-enduring  consequences,  for  weal  or  for  woe, 
which  are  to  result  from  the  struggle,  and  especially  to 
strengthen  our  reliance  on  the  Supreme  Being  for  the 
final  triumph  of  the  right,  cannot  but  be  well  for  us  all. 

The  birthday  of  Washington  and  the  Christian  Sab- 
bath coinciding  this  year,  and  suggesting  together  the 
highest  interests  of  this  life  and  of  that  to  come,  it  is  the 
most  propitious  for  the  meeting  proposed. 


GEO.     S.    BOUT  WELL.  267 


"PRESIDENT  LINCOLN  excelled  all  his  contem- 
-L  poraries,  as  he  also  excelled  most  of  the  eminent 
rulers  of  every  time,  in  the  humanity  of  his  nature,  in  the 
constant  assertion  of  reason  over  passion  and  feeling,  in 
the  art  of  dealing  with  men  ;  in  fortitude,  never  disturbed 
by  adversity,  in  capacity  for  delay  when  action  was 
fraught  with  peril,  in  the  power  of  immediate  and  reso- 
lute decision  when  delays  were  dangerous  ;  in  comprehen- 
sive judgment,  which  forecasts  the  final  and  best  opinion  of 
nations  and  of  posterity,  and  in  the  union  of  enlarged 
patriotism,  wise  philanthropy  and  the  highest  political 
justice,  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  save  a  nation  and  to 
emancipate  a  race. 


CHESTNUT  HILLS  FARM,  1880, 


268  REPLY    TO    AN    ADDRESS. 


REPLY 

TO   AN   ADDRESS   FROM   THE  WORKINGMEN  OF   MANCHESTER, 

ENGLAND. 

I  KNOW,  and  deeply  deplore,  the  sufferings  which  the 
workingmen  at  Manchester,  and  in  all  Europe,  are  called 
to  endure  in  this  crisis.  It  has  been  often  and  studiously 
represented  that  the  attempt  to  overthrow  this  Govern- 
ment, which  was  built  upon  the  foundation  of  human 
rights,  and  to  substitute  for  it  one  which  should  rest  ex- 
clusively on  the  basis  of  human  slavery,  was  likely  to 
obtain  the  favor  of  Europe.  Through  the  action  of  our 
disloyal  citizens,  the  workingmen  of  Europe  have  been 
subjected  to  severe  trials,  for  the  purpose  of  forcing  their 
sanction  to  that  attempt.  Under  these  circumstances,  I 
cannot  but  regard  your  decisive  utterances  upon  the  ques- 
tion as  an  instance  of  sublime  Christian  heroism,  which 
has  not  been  surpassed  in  any  age  or  in  any  country.  It 
is  indeed  an  energetic  and  reinspiring  assurance  of  the 
inherent  power  of  truth,  and  of  the  ultimate  and  universal 
triumph  of  justice,  humanity  and  freedom.  I  do  not 
doubt  that  the  sentiments  you  have  expressed  will  be  sus- 
tained by  your  great  nation,  and  on  the  other  hand  I  have 
no  hesitation  in  assuring  you  that  they  will  excite  admira- 
tion, esteem,  and  the  most  reciprocal  feelings  of  friend- 
ship among  the  American  people.  I  hail  this  interchange 
of  sentiment,  therefore,  as  an  augury,  that,  whatever  else 


REPLY     TO     4«V    ADDRESS.  269 

may  happen,  whatever  misfortune  may  befall  your  coun- 
try or  my  own,  the  peace  and  friendship  which  now  exists 
between  the  two  nations  will  be,  as  it  shall  be  my  desire 
to  make  them,  perpetual 

JANUARY  19,  1863. 


&E  MARKS. 


REMARKS 

MADE   TO   SOME    FRIENDS    NEW    YEARS    EVENING,   1863,  CON- 
CERNING   THE    PROCLAMATION. 

THE  signature  looks  a  little  tremulous,  for  my  hand 
was  tired,  but  my  resolution  was  firm.  I  told  them  in 
September,  if  they  did  not  return  to  their  allegiance,  and 
cease  murdering  our  soldiers,  I  would  strike  at  this  pillar 
of  their  strength.  And  now  the  promise  shall  be  kept, 
and  not  one  word  of  it  will  I  ever  recall. 


HORACE    MAYNARD.  .  271 


I  AM  glad  there  is  to  be  laid  another  block,  perhaps 
I  should  say  another  course,  upon  the  monument 
which  the  American  people,  year  by  year,  are  erecting  to 
the  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Every  effort  to  per- 
petuate his  name  and  make  known  his  character  engages 
my  sympathy. 

My  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Lincoln  began 
shortly  after  his  first  inauguration  as  President  of  the 
United  States.  The  perturbed  condition  of  public  affairs 
soon  brought  me  much  into  his  presence,  and  I  saw  more 
of  him,  by  far,  than  is  usual  in  the  case  of  persons  occu- 
pying places  so  widely  apart.  I  have  seen  most  of  the 
great  men  of  our  country,  my  contemporaries,  and  have 
known  them,  more  or  less,  it  has  so  happened.  It  was 
easy  to  say  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  greatest  of  them  all, 
but  this  would  imperfectly  express  my  conception  of  the 
truth.  He  was  great  in  a  different  way  from  any  other. 
He  impressed  me  as  no  other  man  ever  did.  Never  was 
the  title  Honest  so  expressive  of  character  —  honest  not 
only  in  action  and  word,  but  also  in  thought  and  feeling 
and  purpose.  When  he  gave  a  reason  for  what  he  did, 
you  felt  instinctively  that  it  was  the  real  reason  and  not  a 
mere  attempt  at  justification.  It  was  this  profound  truth- 
fulness which  gained  for  his  words  and  actions  the  un- 
questioning confidence  and  support  of  the  country. 


/ 

KNOXVILLE,  1881. 


THE    LETTER     TO    ERASTUS    CORNING. 


FROM    THE    LETTER  TO    ERASTUS   CORN- 
ING  AND  OTHERS, 

JUNE    12,    1863. 

MUST  I  shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier  boy  who  de- 
serts while  I  must  not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily  agitator 
who  induces  him  to  desert  ?  This  is  none  the  less  injuri- 
ous when  effected  by  getting  a  father,  or  brother, 
or  friend,  into  a  public  meeting,  and  there  work- 
ing upon  his  feelings  till  he  is  persuaded  to  write  the 
soldier  boy  that  he  is  fighting  in  a  bad  cause,  for  a  wicked 
administration  of  a  contemptible  government,  too  weak  to 
arrest  and  punish  him  if  he  shall  desert.  I  think  that  in 
such  a  case,  to  silence  the  agitator  and  save  the  boy  is 
not  only  constitutional,  but  withal  a  great  mercy. 


/.     M.     STURTEVANT.  273 


I  KNEW  Mr.  Lincoln  very  well,  I  may  say  somewhat 
intimately,  before  he  was  ever  thought  of  in  con- 
nection with  the  exalted  station  to  which  he  was  after- 
wards elected.  In  those  years  of  his  comparative  ob- 
scurity, I  knew  him  as  preeminently  a  truthful  man. 
His  love  of  truth  was  conspicious  in  all  his  thinking.  The 
object  of  his  pursuit  was  truth,  and  not  victory  in  argu- 
ment or  the  triumph  of  his  party,  or  the  success  of  his 
own  cause.  This  was  always  conspicuous  in  his  conver- 
sation. It  constituted  the  charm  of  his  conversation. 
In  his  society  one  plainly  saw,  that  his  aim  was  so  to  use 
words  to  express  and  not  conceal  his  real  thoughts.  This 
characteristic  had  formed  his  style,  both  of  conversation 
and  of  writing.  His  habitual  love  of  truth  had  led  him 
successfully  to  cultivate  such  a  use  of  language  as  would 
most  clearly  and  accurately  express  his  thoughts.  His 
words  were  a  perfectly  transparent  medium  through  which 
his  thought  always  shone  out  with  unclouded  distinct- 
ness. No  matter  on  what  subject  he  was  speaking,  any- 
person  could  understand  him.  This  characteristic  of  his 
mind  and  heart  gave  a  peculiar  complexion  to  his 
speeches,  whether  at  the  bar,  or  in  discussing  the  great 
political  issues  of  the  time.  He  always  preferred  to  do 
more  than  justice  rather  than  less  to  an  opponent.  It  was 
often  noticed,  that  he  stated  his  opponent's  argument  with 
more  force  than  his  opponent  himself  had  done.  In  the 
opening  of  his  argument,  his  friends  would  often  feel  for 

the  moment  that  he  was  surrendering  the  whole  ground 
18 


274  /•     M.     STURTEVANT. 

in  debate.  They  had  no  need  to  concern  themselves  on 
that  subject,  it  would  always  turn  out  that  he  had  only 
surrendered  fallacious  grounds,  on  which  it  was  unsafe  to 
rely,  while  the  solid  foundation  on  which  his  own  faith 
rested  was  left  intact,  as  the  enduring  basis  on  which  he 
would  build  his  argument.  He  was  a  very  conscientious 
man ;  his  anti-slavery  opinions  had  their  seat  in  no  mere 
political  expediency,  but  in  the  very  depths  of  his  moral 
nature.  In  the  summer  of  1856  he  delivered  a  speech  to 
a  very  large  audience  assembled  on  the  public  square  in 
this  city  ;  the  population  of  this  county  were  at  that  time 
very  largely  of  Southern  origin,  and  had  those  views  of 
slavery  which  prevailed  in  the  States  from  which  they 
came.  His  audience  on  that  occasion  were  very  largely 
of  that  character.  Yet  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  very  frank 
and  explicit  avowal  of  his  opposition  to  slavery  on  moral 
grounds,  and  drew  his  argument  against  it  from  the 
deepest  roots  of  natural  justice  ;  yet  he  presented  the  case 
with  such  irresistible  eloquence  that  his  speech  was  re- 
ceived with  the  greatest  favor,  and  often  with  outbursts  of 
very  hearty  applause.  That  speech  went  far  in  all  this 
region  to  establish  his  reputation  as  a  popular  orator. 

In  a  conversation  I  once  had  with  him,  at  what  was 
then  his  dingy  office  in  Springfield,  where  I  had  gone  for 
no  other  purpose  than  to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  an  hour's 
conversation  with  him,  I  spoke  of  the  then  recent  anti- 
slavery  excitement  in  St.  Louis  as  proceeding  entirely 
upon  the  ground  of  expediency  for  the  white  man.  "  I," 
said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  must  take  into  account  the  rights  of 
the  poor  negro."  That  conscientious  element  is  appar- 
ent in  the  whole  course  of  his  public  policy.  Conscience 


/.     M.     STURTEVANT.  .  275 

constrained  him  to  regard  his  oath  to  respect  the  consti- 
tution of  the  United  States ;  and  yet  always  to  remember 
the  rights  of  the  negro,  and  to  do  all  for  him  which  his  con- 
stitutional powers  permitted  him  to  do.  Had  he  not  been 
conscientious  in  both  these  directions,  he  would,  in  all 
probability,  have  plunged  his  country  in  last  anarchy. 
Most  admirably  did  his  statesmanship  combine  in  itself  the 
true  conservative  and  the  true  radical.  He  was  just  such 
a  statesman  as  every  nation  needs  in  the  great  crisis  of  its 
history.  It  is  eminently  an  American  phenomenon,  that 
a  man  was  born  in  a  log-cabin  in  the  backwoods  of  Ken- 
tucky, who  had  precisely  the  intellectual  endowments  and 
moral  characteristics  which  his  country  would  need  in  its 
chief  magistrate,  in  its  hour  of  supreme  necessity.  Verily 
there  is  a  God  in  history  !  Mr.  Lincoln's  emotional  char- 
acter was  one  of  the  most  kindly  I  have  ever  known. 
The  tenderness  of  his  affections  was  almost  womanly.  I 
confess  I  sometimes  thought  this  trait  in  his  character 
was  rather  in  excess,  certainly,  for  the  ruler  of  a  great  na- 
tion. He  was  not  only  incapable  of  malice,  but  I  some- 
times thought  he  was  too  much  afraid  of  hurting  any- 
body's feelings.  If  it  was  a  fault,  it  was  a  fault  of  a  great 
and  magnanimous  soul,  of  which  few  men  are  capable.  If 
he  had  any  vices  they  always  leaned  to  virtue's  side. 
The  wail  of  sorrow  with  which  his  foul  taking-off  was  re- 
ceived throughout  the  civilized  world  was  a  spontaneous 
tribute  to  the  exalted  and  unique  virtues  of  his  character, 
pointing  him  out  as  the  man  who,  of  all  the  great  historic 
names,  had  least  deserved  so  sad  a  fate.  There  are  re- 
markable analogies  and  equally  remarkable  contrasts  be- 
tween the  careers  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Gen.  Garfield. 


276  /.     M.     STURTEVANT. 

Both  originated  in  obscurity  and  in  the  midst  of  the  pri- 
vations of  frontier  life ;  both  were  great  in  the  natural  en- 
dowments of  the  intellect,  and  greater  still  in  the  exalted 
moral  characteristics  in  which  they  shone  above  most 
others  of  our  statesmen.  Both  were  cut  off  in  the  midst 
of  their  high  career  and  in  the  very  prime  of  life,  by  the 
hand  of  the  merciless  assassin.  At  the  untimely  and 
violent  death  of  both,  the  civilized  world  put  on  mourning 
to  an  extent  never  before  seen  in  history. 

The  contrast  appears  chiefly  in  this.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
born  and  reared  in  a  community  in  which  the  advantages 
of  education  had  been  little  enjoyed,  and  consequently  the 
spirit  of  liberal  learning  had  been  little  diffused.  He  had 
none  to  encourage  and  help  him.  He  must  find  his  way 
out  into  the  light  of  knowledge  by  his  own  unassisted 
efforts.  As  a  consequence,  he  did  not  acquire  the  first 
rudiments  of  an  education  till  he  had  reached  mature 
manhood.  Mr.  Garfield  was  born  in  a  community  in  which 
education  had  been  universal  from  its  very  origin,  and 
where  men  built  the  school-house  in  every  neighborhood 
simultaneously  with  their  own  log  cabins.  The  whole 
people  was,  as  the  consequence,  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
liberal  learning,  and  as  soon  as  young  Garfield  began  to 
show  the  superiority  of  his  talents  in  the  common  school, 
the  suggestion  came  from  every  quarter,  you  should  have 
a  collegiate  education.  An  educated  community  bore  him 
onward  towards  his  great  destiny  from  his  very  boyhood. 
This  made  the  task  a  comparatively  easy  one.  At  the 
time  of  life  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  just  beginning  to 
acquire  the  first  rudiments,  Mr.  Garfield  was  already  a 
graduate  of  one  of  our  most  renowned  colleges.  Such  is 


/.     M.     STURTEVANT.  277 

the  advantage  of  being  born  in  a  community  in  which  the 
first  rudiments  of  knowledge  are  universally  diffused  by 
the  ubiquitous  common  school.  • 

That  Mr.  Lincoln  succeeded  in  surmounting  the  ob- 
stacles which  hemmed  him  in  on  every  side,  is  wonderful 
indeed.  Few  men,  certainly,  have  ever  risen  to  greatness, 
purely  by  the  force  of  intellectual  and  moral  excellence, 
by  a  road  so  hard  as  that  by  which  he  traveled ;  yet  he 
accomplished  the  mighty  task  without  one  of  the  arts  of 
the  demagogue,  or  one  of  the  vices  of  the  corrupt  poli- 
tician ;  and  transferred  his  residence  from  the  obscure  log- 
cabin  in  the  wilderness,  to  the  executive  mansion  of  a 
mighty  nation,  in  his  fifty-third  year.  Dying  by  violence  in 
his  fifty-seventh  year,  he  left  a  name  behind  to  be  forever 
spoken  with  honor  and  reverence  in  the  halls  of  the  great 
and  in  the  palaces  of  kings,  and  to  be  cherished  with  im- 
perishable affection  in  the  humble  dwellings  of  the  poor 
and  lowly. 

Cs 

JACKSONVILLE,  1882. 


278  RESPONSE     TO    A     SERENADE. 


RESPONSE  TO   A  SERENADE, 
JULY,  1863. 

I  AM  very  glad  indeed  to  see  you  to-night,  and  yet  I 
will  not  say  I  thank  you  for  this  call  ;  but  I  do  most  sin- 
cerely thank  Almighty  God  for  the  occasion  on  which 
you  have  called.  How  long  ago  is  it  ? — eighty  odd  years 
—since,  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  for  the  first  time  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  a  nation,  by  its  representatives,  assem- 
bled and  declared  as  a  self-evident  truth,  "  that  all  men 
are  created  equal."  That  was  the  birthday  of  the  United 
States  of  America.  Since  then  the  Fourth  of  July  has 
had  several  very  peculiar  recognitions.  The  two  men 
most  distinguished  in  the  framing  and  support  of  the 
Declaration  were  Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Adams — 
the  one  having  penned  it,  and  the  other  sustained  it  the 
most  forcibly  in  debate — the  only  two  of  the  fifty-five 
who  signed  it,  and  were  elected  Presidents  of  the  United 
States.  Precisely  fifty  years  after  they  put  their  hands 
to  the  paper,  it  pleased  Almighty  God  to  take  both  from 
this  stage  of  action.  This  was  indeed  an  extraordinary 
and  remarkable  event  in  .our  history.  Another  President 
five  years  after  was  called  from  this  stage  of  existence  on 
the  came  day  and  month  of  the  year ;  and  now  on  this 
last  Fourth  of  July  just  passed,  when  we  have  a  gigantic 
rebellion,  at  the  bottom  of  which  is  an  effort  to  overthrow 
the  principle  that  all  men  were  created  equal,  we  have 
the  surrender  of  a  most  powerful  position  and  army  on 


RESPONSE     TO    A     SERENADE.  279 

that  very  day.  And  not  only  so,  but  in  a  succession  of 
battles  in  Pennsylvania,  near  to  us,  through  three  days, 
so  rapidly  fought  that  they  might  be  called  one  great 
battle,  on  the  first,  second  and  third  of  the  month  of 
July;  and  on  the  fourth  the  cohorts  of  those  who 
opposed  the  declaration  that  all  men  are  created  equal, 
"  turned  tail  "  and  run.  Gentlemen,  this  is  a  glorious 
theme  and  the  occasion  for  a  speech,  but  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  make  one  worthy  of  the  occasion.  I  would  like 
to  speak  in  terms  of  praise  due  to  the  many  brave 
officers  and  soldiers  who  have  fought  in  the  cause  of  the 
Union  and  liberties  of  their  country  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war.  These  are  trying  occasions,  not  only  in 
success,  but  for  the  want  of  success.  I  dislike  to  mention 
the  name  of  one  single  officer,  lest  I  might  do  wrong  to 
those  I  might  forget.  Recent  events  bring  up  glorious 
names,  and  particularly  prominent  ones  :  but  these  I  will 
not  mention.  Having  said  this  much,  I  will  now  take 
the  music. 


28o  THE    PRESIDENT'S    DISPATCH. 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  DISPATCH, 
JULY  4,  1863. 

THE  President  announces  to  the  country,  that  news 
from  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  to  ten  p.  M.  of  the  third, 
is  such  as  to  cover  that  army  with  the  highest  honor ;  to 
promise  a  great  success  to  the  cause  of  the  Union,  and  to 
claim  the  condolence  of  all  for  the  many  gallant  fallen ; 
and  that,  for  this,  he  especially  desires  that  on  this  day, 
He,  whose  will,  not  ours,  should  ever  be  done,  be  every- 
where remembered,  and  reverenced  with  profoundest 
gratitude. 


WENDELL     PHILLIPS— NOAH    PORTER. 


281 


HE  was  one  whom  responsibility  educated,  and  he 
showed  himself  more  and  more  nearly  equal  to 
duty  as  year  after  year  laid  on  him  ever  fresh  burdens. 
God-given  and  God-led  and  sustained,  we  must  ever  be- 
lieve him. 


BOSTON,   1 880. 


THUS  saith  the  Lord,   In  an  acceptable  time  have 
I    heard  thee,  and  in  a  day  of  salvation  have  I 
helped  thee  ....  That  thou  mayest  say  to  the  pris- 
oners, go  forth  ;  to  them  that  are  in  darkness,  show  your- 
selves.— Isaiah  xlix.  8,  9. 


YALE  COLLEGE,  1880. 


282  PROCLAMATION 


PROCLAMATION. 

THE  year  that  is  drawing  towards  its  close  has  been 
filled  with  the  blessings  of  fruitful  fields  and  healthful 
skies.  To  these  bounties,  which  are  so  constantly  en- 
joyed that  we  are  prone  to  forget  the  source  from  which 
they  come,  others  have  been  added  which  are  of  so  extra- 
ordinary a  nature  that  they  cannot  fail  to  penetrate  and 
soften  even  the  heart  which  is  habitually  insensible  to 
the  ever-watchful  providence  of  Almighty  God.  In  the 
midst  of  a  civil  war  of  unequaled  magnitude  and  severity, 
which  has  sometimes  seemed  to  invite  and  provoke  the 
aggressions  of  foreign  states,  peace  has  been  preserved 
with  all  nations,  order  has  been  maintained,  the  laws 
have  been  respected  and  obeyed,  and  harmony  has  pre- 
vailed everywhere  except  in  the  theater  of  military  conflict, 
while  that  theater  has  been  greatly  contracted  by  the  ad- 
vancing armies  and  navies  of  the  Union.  The  needful 
diversion  of  wealth  and  strength  from  the  fields  of  peace- 
ful industry  to  the  national  defense,  have  not  arrested  the 
plow,  the  shuttle,  or  the  ship.  The  axe  has  enlarged  the 
borders  of  our  settlements,  and  the  mines  as  well  of  iron 
and  coal  as  of  the  precious  metals,  have  yielded  even  more 
abundantly  than  heretofore.  Population  has  steadily  in- 
creased, notwithstanding  the  waste  that  has  been  made  in 
the  camp,  the  siege  and  the  battle-field ;  and  the  country, 
rejoicing  in  the  consciousness  of  augmented  strength  and 
vigor,  is  permitted  to  expect  a  continuance  of  years  with 


PROCLAMA  TION.  283 

large  increase  of  freedom.  No  human  counsel  hath  de- 
vised, nor  hath  any  mortal  hand  worked  out  these  great 
things.  They  are  the  gracious  gifts  of  the  Most  High 
God,  who,  while  dealing  with  us  in  anger  for  our  sins, 
hath  nevertheless  remembered  mercy.  It  has  seemed  to 
me  fit  and  proper  that  they  should  be  solemnly,  reverent- 
ly, and  gratefully  acknowledged,  as  with  one  heart  and 
voice,  by  the  whole  American  people.  I  do,  therefore, 
invite  my  fellow-citizens  in  every  part  of  the  United 
States,  and  also  those  who  are  at  sea,  and  those  who  are 
sojourning  in  foreign  lands,  to  set  apart  and  observe  the 
last  Thursday  of  November  next  as  a  day  of  thanksgiv- 
ing and  prayer  to  our  beneficent  Father,  who  dwelleth  in 
the  heavens.  And  I  recommend  to  them  that,  while 
offering  up  the  ascriptions  justly  due  to  Him  for  such 
singular  deliverances  and  blessings,  they  do  also,  with 
humble  penitence  for  our  national  perverseness  and  diso- 
bedience, commend  to  his  tender  care  all  those  who  have 
become  widows,  orphans,  mourners  or  sufferers  in  the 
lamentable  civil  strife  in  which  we  are  unavoidably  en- 
gaged, and  fervently  implore  the  interposition  of  the  Al- 
mighty Hand  to  heal  the  wounds  of  the  nation,  and  to 
restore  it,  as  soon  as  may  be  consistent  with  the  divine 
purposes,  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  peace,  harmony,  tran- 
quillity, and  union. 


OCTOBER  3,  1863. 


284 


REPLY    TO    A     COMMITTEE. 


REPLY   TO    COMMITTEE    OF    THE  PRESBY- 
TERIAN CHURCH  (NEW  SCHOOL),. 

PHILADELPHIA,     1863. 

IN  my  administration  I  might  have  committed  some 
errors.  It  would  be  indeed  remarkable  if  I  had  not.  I 
have  acted  according  to  my  best  judgment  in  every  case. 
As  a  pilot  I  have  used  my  best  exertions  to  keep  afloat 
our  ship  of  state,  and  shall  be  glad  to  resign  my  trust  at 
the  appointed  time  to  another  pilot  more  skillful  and  suc- 
cessful than  I  may  prove.  In  every  case,  and  at  all 
hazards,  the  Government  must  be  perpetuated.  Relying, 
as  I  do,  upon  the  Almighty  Power,  and  encouraged,  as  I 
am,  by  these  resolutions  which  you  have  just  read,  with  the 
support  which  I  receive  from  Christian  men,  I  shall  not 
hesitate  to  use  all  the  means  at  my  control  to  secure  the 
termination  of  this  rebellion,  and  will  hope  for  success. 


S.     IRENAEUS    PRIME.  285 


MY  FIRST  SIGHT  OF  MR.  LINCOLN. 

HE  was  riding  into  the  city  of  New  York  with 
military  and  civic  escort,  on  his  way  to  Wash- 
ington to  be  inaugurated  for  the  first  time  to  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  United  States.  The  country  was  at  that 
moment  in  the  first  throes  of  the  great  rebellion.  Mil- 
lions of  hearts  were  beating  anxiously  in  view  of  the  ad- 
vent to  power  of  this  untried  man.  Had  he  been  called 
of  God  to  the  throne  of  power  at  such  a  time  as  this  to 
be  the  leader  and  deliverer  of  the  people  ? 

As  the  carriage  in  which  he  sat  passed  slowly  by  me 
on  the  Fifth  avenue,  he  was  looking  weary,  sad,  feeble 
and  faint.  My  disappointment  was  excessive,  so  great, 
indeed,  as  to  be  almost  overwhelming.  He  did  not  look 
to  me  to  be  the  man  for  the  hour.  The  next  day  I  was 
with  him  and  others  in  the  Governor's  room  in  the  City 
Hall,  when  the  Mayor  of  the  city  made  to  Mr.  Lincoln  an 
official  address.  Of  this  speech  I  will  say  nothing ;  but 
the  reply  by  Mr.  Lincoln  was  so  modest,  firm,  patriotic 
and  pertinent,  that  my  fears  of  the  day  before  began  to 
subside,  and  I  saw  in  this  new  man  a  promise  of  great 
things  to  come.  It  was  not  boldness  nor  dash,  nor  high- 
sounding  pledges ;  nor  did  he,  in  office,  with  the  mighty 
armies  of  a  roused  nation  at  his  command,  ever  assume 
to  be  more  than  he  promised  in  that  little  upper  chamber 
in  New  York,  on  his  journey  to  the  seat  of  government, 


286  S.     IRENAEUS    PRIME. 

to  take  the  helm  of  the  ship  of  state  then  tossing  in  the 
storm.  During  the  war,  I  was  dining  with  a  party  of 
which  Gen.  Burnside  was  one.  A  gentleman  expressed 
surprise  and  regret  that  the  war  had  not  brought  to  the 
front  in  civil  service  some  man  of  such  commanding  force 
of  character,  will-power  and  genius  as  to  compel  his  coun- 
trymen to  accept  him  as  the  born  statesman  for  the  hour. 
Gen.  Burnside  said  :  "We  are  drifting,"  and  it  is  better 
so.  I  think  Mr.  Lincoln  is  just  the  man  to  keep  the  ship 
on  its  course.  One  more  headstrong,  willful  and  resolute 
might  divide  and  weaken  the  counsels  of  the  nation.  We 
shall  go  through  and  come  out  all  right."  It  did  not 
please  God  to  spare  him  until  the  people  were  settled  in 
peace  in  the  redeemed  and  reunited  land.  But  he  saw 
from  the  mount  of  vision  the  goodly  sight  afar,  and  died 
in  faith. 


NEW  YORK,  1882. 


ALEX.     RAMSEY—  C.     E.    PRATT. 


287 


MR.    LINCOLN'S  life  was  one  of  true  patriotism, 
and  his  character   one    of  honesty  and  of  the 
highest  type  of  religious  sentiment. 


ST.  PAUL,  1882. 


WHEN  history  crystallizes  that  the  events  of  a 
century  shall  be  recorded  in  a  sentence,  then  will 
the  administrations  of  Washington  and  Lincoln  be  the 
epochal  marks  of  this  age.  The  former  founded  a  re- 
public, the  latter  was  the  great  emancipator  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 


BROOKLYN,  1880. 


288  LETTER     TO     GENERAL     GRANT. 


LETTER  TO  GENERAL  GRANT. 

MAJOR-GENERAL  GRANT. — My  Dear  General :  I  do 
not  remember  that  you  and  I  ever  met  personally.  I 
write  this  now  as  a  grateful  acknowlegement  for  the  al- 
most inestimable  service  you  have  done  the  country. 
I  write  to  say  a  word  further.  When  you  first  reached 
the  vicinity  of  Vicksburg,  I  thought  you  should  do  what 
you  finally  did — march  the  troops  across  the  neck,  run 
the  batteries  with  the  transports,  and  thus  go  below  ;  and 
I  never  had  any  faith,  except  a  general  hope  that  you 
knew  better  than  I,  that  the  Yazoo  Pass  expedition,  and 
the  like,  could  succeed.  When  you  got  below,  and 
took  Port  Gibson,  Grand  Gulf  and  .vicinity,  I  thought 
you  should  go  down  the  river  and  join  General  Banks  ; 
and  when  you  turned  northward,  east  of  the  Big  Black, 
I  feared  it  was  a  mistake.  I  now  wish  to  make  the 
personal  acknowledgment  that  you  were  right  and  I  was 
wrong. 


ft 

RAY    PALMER.  289 


r  I  ^HERE  can  be,  I  think,  but  one  opinion  among 
JL  those  competent  to  form  a  judgment  of  the  gen- 
eral character  and  services  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  His 
native  genius,  the  solidity  of  his  understanding,  his  com- 
mon sense  and  remarkable  sagacity,  his  patience  and 
courage,  and  above  all,  his  incorruptible  integrity  and 
steadfast  faith  in  God,  gave  him  eminent  administrative 
ability,  made  him  a  noble  man,  a  great  statesman  and  the 
second  Father  of  his  Country.  This  will,  I  doubt  not,  be 
the  judgment  of  history. 


NEWARK,  1882. 

19 


290  A     PROCLAMA  TION. 


A  PROCLAMATION. 

JULY    15,     1863. 

IT  has  pleased  Almighty  God  to  hearken  to  the  suppli- 
cation and  prayers  of  an  afflicted  people,  and  to  vouchsafe 
to  the  army  and  the  navy  of  the  United  States,  on  the 
land  and  on  the  sea,  victories  so  signal  and  so  effective  as 
to  furnish  reasonable  grounds  for  augmented  confidence 
that  the  Union  of  these  States  will  be  maintained,  their 
constitution  preserved,  and  their  peace  and  prosperity 
permanently  secured.  But  these  victories  have  been  ac- 
corded not  without  sacrifice  of  life,  limb,  and  liberty,  in- 
curred by  brave,  patriotic  and  loyal  citizens.  Domestic 
affliction,  in  every  part  of  the  country,  follows  in  the 
train  of  these  fearful  bereavements.  It  is  meet  and  right 
to  recognize  and  confess  the  presence  of  th°:  Almighty 
Father ;  and  the  power  of  his  hand  equally  in  these  tri- 
umphs and  these  sorrows. 

Now,  therefore,  be  it  known,  that  I  do  set  apart 
Thursday,  the  sixth  day  of  August  next,  to  be  observed 
as  a  day  for  national  thanksgiving,  praise  and  prayer ; 
and  I  invite  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  assemble 
on  that  occasion  in  their  customary  places  of  worship, 
and,  in  the  form  approved  by  their  own  conscience,  ren- 
der the  homage  due  to  the  Divine  Majesty,  for  the  won- 
derful things  he  has  done  in  the  nation's  behalf,  and 
invoke  the  influence  of  his  holy  Spirit,  to  subdue  the 
anger  which  has  produced,  and  so  long  sustained,  a 


A    PROCLAMATION.  291 

needless  and  cruel  rebellion ;  to  change  the  hearts  of 
the  insurgents  ;  to  guide  the  counsels  of  the  govern- 
ment with  wisdom  adequate  to  so  great  a  national 
emergency ;  and  to  visit  with  tender  care  and  consolation, 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  land,  all  those 
who,  through  the  vicissitudes  of  marches,  voyages,  battles,, 
and  sieges,  have  been  brought  to  suffer  in  mind,  body  or 
estate ;  and  finally,  to  lead  the  whole  nation  through  paths 
of  repentance  and  submission  to  the  Divine  will,  back  to 
the  perfect  enjoyment  of  union  and  fraternal  peace. 


292  PRESENTATION    TO     U.    S.     GRANT. 


PRESENTATION     OF     A     COMMISSION    AS 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL    TO    U.   S. 

GRANT. 

GENERAL  GRANT  : — The  nation's  appreciation  of 
what  you  have  done,  and  its  reliance  upon  you  for  what 
remains  to  be  done  in  the  existing  great  struggle,  are  now 
presented  with  this  commission,  constituting  you  Lieu- 
tenant-General  in  the  Army  of  the  United  States.  With 
this  high  honor  devolves  upon  you  also  a  corresponding 
responsibility.  As  the  country  herein  trusts  you,  so, 
under  God,  it  will  sustain  you.  I  scarcely  need  to  add, 
that  with  what  I  here  speak  for  the  nation,  goes  my  own 
hearty  personal  concurrence. 


NATIONAL  LINCOLN  MONUMENT  AT  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS 

Unveiled  and  dedicated.  October  15. 1874.  Dimensions  72)tf  by  119V5  feet  square,  and  100  feet  high.  De- 
»igned  and  modeled  by  Larkin  G.  Mead.  Cost.  $212.000. 

Emblematical  of  ihe  Constitution  of  the  United  Slates.  President  Mncoln  standing  nbovo  tho  coat  of 
arms,  with  the  Infantry.  Navy,  Artillery,  and  Cavalry  marshalled  nronnd  him,  wields  all  for  h"l«ling  ihe  States 
together  in  a  perpetual  bond  of  Union,  without  which  he  could  never  hope  to  effect  the  pn  at  enemy  of  human 
freedom.  Tho  grand  climax  is  indicated  by  Pn-eideut  Lincoln  with  his  left  hand  h"lding  out  as  a  golden 
sceptre,  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  while  In  his  right  he  holds  tho  pen  with  which  he  had  just 
written  it.  The  right  hand  is  resting  on  another  badge  of  authority,  the  American  Flag,  thrown  over  the 
fascet.  Atthefootofthe/Vwcftt  lies  a  wreath  of  laurel  with  which  to  crown  the  President  as  the  victor  over 
slavery  and  rebellion. 


WM.    P.    FRYE.  293 


I  HAVE  no  capacity  to  do  justice  to  the  greatness, 
purity  and  honesty  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  nor  to 
the  immense  value  of  his  service  to  our  country.  The 
great  heart  of  the  nation  alone  is  equal  to  a  work  of 
such  magnitude.  He  touched  the  manacles  of  four  mil- 
lions of  men  and  women,  and  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye 
they  dropped  off  forever.  He  wrote  a  word,  and  slavery, 
which  had  hung  like  a  mill-stone  around  the  neck  of  the 
nation,  compelling  it  to  bow  its  head  in  shame  and  dis- 
grace, sunk  into  oblivion.  The  possibilities  of  his  life 
were  grand  ;  how  grandly  were  they  realized  !  The  glory 
and  luster  of  his  name  will  stand  in  the  history  of  the 
nation  "more  lasting  than  a  monument  of  brass." 


LEWISTON,  1882. 


294  LETTER     TO    JAMES    C.     CONKLING. 


LETTER   TO  JAMES  C.  CONKLING, 

AUGUST,    1863. 

THE  signs  look  better.  The  Father  of  Waters  again 
goes  unvexed  to  the  sea.  Thanks  to  the  great  Northwest 
for  it ;  nor  yet  wholly  to  them.  Three  hundred  miles 
up  they  web  New  England,  Empire,  Keystone  and  Jersey, 
hewing  their  way  right  and  left.  The  sunny  South,  too, 
in  more  colors  than  one,  also  lent  a  helping  hand.  On 
the  spot,  their  part  of  the  history  was  jotted  down  in 
black  and  white.  The  job  was  a  great  national  one,  and 
let  none  be  slighted  who  bore  an  honorable  part  in  it. 
And  while  those  who  have  cleared  the  great  river  may 
well  be  proud,  even  that  is  not  all.  It  is  hard  to  say  that 
anything  has  been  more  bravely  and  well  done  than  at 
Antietam,  Murfreesboro,  Gettysburg,  and  on  many  fields 
of  less  note.  Nor  must  Uncle  Sam's  wet  feet  be  for- 
gotten. At  all  the  watery  margins  they  have  been  pres- 
ent. Not  only  on  the  deep  sea,  the  broad  bay,  and  the 
rapid  river,  but  also  up  the  narrow,  muddy  bayou,  and 
wherever  the  ground  was  a  little  damp,  they  have  been 
and  made  their  tracks.  Thanks  to  all.  For  the  great 
republic — for  the  principle  it  lives  by  and  keeps  alive — 
for  man's  vast  future — thanks  to  all.  Peace  does  not  ap- 
pear so  distant  as  it  did.  I  hope  it  will  come  soon  and 
come  to  stay ;  and  so  come  as  to  be  worth  the  keeping  in 
all  future  time.  It  will  then  have  been  proved  that 
among  freemen  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal  from 


LETTER     TO    JAMES    C.     CONKLING.          295 

the  ballot  to  the  bullet,  and  that  they  who  take  such 
appeal  are  sure  to  lose  their  case  and  pay  the  cost.  And 
there  will  be  some  black  men  who  can  remember  that  with 
silent  tongue,  and  clinched  teeth,  and  steady  eye,  and 
well-poised  bayonets,  they  have  helped  mankind  on  to  this 
great  consummation,  while  I  fear  there  will  be  some  white 
ones  unable  to  forget  that  with  malignant  heart  and 
deceitful  speech  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it.  Still,  let 
us  not  be  over-sanguine  of  a  speedy,  final  triumph.  Let 
us  be  quite  sober.  Let  us  diligently  apply  the  means, 
never  doubting  that  a  just  God,  in  his  own  good  time, 
will  give  us  the  rightful  result. 


296  REPLY    TO     GOVERNOR    SEYMOUR. 


REPLY   TO    THE    LETTER    OF    GOVERNOR 
SEYMOUR,  OF  NEW  YORK, 

AUGUST,     1863. 

No  time  is  wasted,  no  argument  is  used.  This  pro- 
duces an  army  which  will  soon  turn  upon  our  now  vic- 
torious soldiers  in  the  field,  if  they  shall  not  be  sustained 
by  recruits  as  they  should  be.  It  produces  an  army  with 
a  rapidity  not  to  be  matched  on  our  side,  if  we  first  waste 
time  to  re-experiment  with  the  volunteer  system,  already 
deemed  by  Congress,  and  palpably,  in  fact,  so  far 
exhausted  as  to  be  inadequate,  and  then  more  time  to 
obtain  a  court  decision  as  to  whether  a  law  is  constitu- 
tional which  requires  a  part  of  those  not  now  in  the  serv- 
ice to  go  to  the  aid  of  those  who  are  already  in  it ;  and 
still  more  time  to  determine  with  absolute  certainty  that 
we  get  those  who  are  to  go  in  the  precisely  legal  pro- 
portion to  those  who  are  not  to  go.  My  purpose  is  to 
be  in  my  action  just  and  constitutional,  and  yet  practical 
in  performing  the  important  duty  with  which  I  am 
charged,  of  maintaining  the  unity  and  free  principles  of 
our  common  country. 


EUGENE    HALE— ALBERT    J.    MEYER.          297 


HE  was  not  only  the  head  of  an  administration 
which  shaped  events  the  mightiest  of  the  century, 
but  its  balance-wheel  also.  The  American  people 
owe  it  to  him  that  the  important  steps  in  the  war  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Union  were  taken  just  at  the  fitting 
moment. 


ELLSWORTH,  1880. 


B 


E  just  and  fear  not." 


U.  S.  SIGNAL  SERVICE,  1880. 


298  ADDRESS 


ADDRESS    ON    THE    BATTLE-FIELD    OF 
GETTYSBURG, 

NOVEMBER    19,   1863. 

FOURSCORE  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  Lib- 
erty, and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are 
created  equal.  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war, 
testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived 
and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a 
great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We  are  met  to  dedicate  a 
portion  of  it  as  the  final  resting-place  of  those  who  here 
gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  alto- 
gether fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot 
consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave 
men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  conse- 
crated it  far  above  our  power  to  add  or  detract.  The 
world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what  we  say 
here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is 
for  us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  un- 
finished work  that  they  have  thus  far  so  nobly  carried  on. 
It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great 
task  remaining  before  us — that  from  these  honored  dead 
we  take  increased  devotion  to  the  cause  for  which  they 
here  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion — that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  the  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain — 
that  the  nation  shall,  under  God,  have  a  new  birth  of  free- 
dom, and  that  the  government  of  the  people,  by  the  peo- 
ple, and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


ARTILLERY  GROUP  OF  STATUARY.     NATIONAL  LINCOLN  MONUMENT. 

Representing  three  artillerymen,  one,  an  officer  standing  on  a  dismounted  cannon  in  an  atti- 
tnde  of  defiance,'  while  below  him  is  a  prostrate  soldier,  wounded  by  the  same  shot  that  disabled 
his  gun,  und  u  boy  in  an  attitude  of  sympathy  and  horror,  springing  forward  as  if  to  succor  his 
wounded  comrade. 


C.    A.    PAYNE.  299 


GREAT  men  are  divinely  called  to  great  missions. 
As  certainly  as  God  called  Abraham  to  be  the 
human  founder  of  his  church,  or  Moses  to  lead  his  people 
out  of  bondage  into  liberty,  or  "girded"  Cyrus  forliis  bene- 
ficent work,  though  unknown  by  that  famous  commander, 
or  commissioned  Paul  to  be  the  leader  of  an  evangelistic 
host,  to  open  the  gates  of  gospel  day  to  heathen  nations, 
or  inspired  Luther  and  Wesley  to  rekindle  the  fires  of 
religion  on  the  altars  of  a  faithless  church,  so  certainly 
does  it  appear  to  thoughtful  minds  that  he  called  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  to  rise  from  the  log-cabin  in  the  wilderness, 
through  difficulties  and  obstacles  that  would  have  ap- 
palled a  weaker  man,  to  take  the  helm  of  the  new 
American  nation  in  its  crisis  hour,  to  strike  the  shackles 
from  an  enslaved  race,  and  thence  to  ascend  to  a  victor's 
throne  and  a  martyr's  crown.  ^  • 


300  THIRD    ANNUAL    MESSAGE. 


THIRD  ANNUAL  MESSAGE   TO    CONGRESS, 

DECEMBER   8,   1863. 

IN  the  midst  of  other  cares,  however  important,  we 
must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  war  power  is  still 
our  main  reliance.  To  that  power  alone  can  we  look,  yet 
for  a  time,  to  give  confidence  to  the  people  in  the  con- 
tested regions  that  the  insurgent  power  will  not  again 
overrun  them.  Until  that  confidence  shall  be  established, 
little  can  be  done  anywhere  for  what  is  called  reconstruc- 
tion. Hence  our  chiefest  care  must  still  be  directed  to 
the  army  and  navy,  who  have  thus  far  borne  their  harder 
part  so  nobly  and  well.  And  it  may  be  esteemed  fortu- 
nate, that  in  giving  the  greatest  efficiency  to  these  indis- 

w 

pensable  arms,  we  do  also  honorably  recognize  the  gallant 
men,  from  commander  to  sentinel,  who  compose  them,  and 
to  whom,  more  than  to  others,  the  world  must  stand 
indebted  for  the  home  of  freedom,  disenthralled,  regen- 
erated, enlarged  and  perpetuated. 


CHARLES    HENRY    HART.  301 


MR.  LINCOLN  v/as  certainly  a  most  remarkable 
man.  He  was  undoubtedly  well  fitted  for  the 
times  in  which  he  lived,  and  the  emergency  that  con- 
fronted him.  He  began  with  a  very  moderate  degree  of 
public  confidence  and  sympathy.  A  large  proportion  of 
the  community  had,  at  the  time  of  his  first  election,  and 
for  a  considerable  period  afterwards,  a  painful  sense  of 
distrust  as  to  his  qualifications  for  the  position  to  which 
he  had  been  called.  This  distrust  was  slow  to  yield. 
Good  things  were  done,  but  they  were  all  attributed,  on 
account  of  this  preconceived  opinion  of  his  ability,  to  the 
excellence  of  his  advisers,  while  the  evils  and  the  mistakes 
were  all  laid  to  him.  His  physical  organization  must  not 
be  overlooked  as  one  of  the  sources  of  his  success.  The 
great  practical  men  of  the  world  have  been,  not  neces- 
sarily of  large,  but  of  strong  bodily  frames.  To  the 
heathen  philosopher,  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body 
seemed  the  greatest  good :  "  Mens  sana  in  corpore  sano." 
The  discipline  of  his  early  life  prepared  his  frame  for 
the  laborious  duties  which  were  to  devolve  upon  him. 
It  is  true  that  this  discipline  did  not  develop  his  form  into 
a  beautiful  and  graceful  one — his  warmest  friends  could 
not  claim  that  for  him — but  they  could  declare  that  "  his 
large  eyes  in  their  softness  and  beauty  expressed  nothing 
but  benevolence  and  gentleness,"  and  that  a  pleasant 
smile  frequently  brought  out  more  vividly  the  earnest 
cast  of  his  features,  which  were  serious  even  to  sadness. 
He  has  been  called  by  one  of  his  best  friends  "a  wiry, 


302  CHARLES    HENRY    HART. 

awkward  giant."  He  was  six  feet  four  inches  high  ;  his 
arms  were  long,  almost  disproportionately  so  ;  his  mouth 
and  nose  were  both  exceedingly  large  ;  his  features  were 
coarse,  and  his  large  hands  exhibited  the  traces  of  toil. 
He  was  not  specially  attentive  to  dress,  though  by  no 
means  slovenly.  The  formal  politeness  of  fashionable 
life  he  had  not,  though  the  gentleness  of  the  unspoiled 
child  of  nature  he  had.  He  said  once  that  he  had  never 
studied  the  art  of  paying  compliments  to  women.  Yet 
they  never  received  a  grander  one  than  he  paid  when  he 
declared :  "  If  all  that  has  been  said  by  orators  and 
poets  since  the  creation  of  the  world,  in  praise  of 
women,  were  applied  to  American  women,  it  would  not 
do  them  justice  for  their  conduct  doing  the  war."  It  has 
been  stated  that  he  had  none  of  the  grossness  of  life. 
He  was  not  a  licentious  man.  He  was  not  addicted  to 
the  use  of  profane  language.  He  did  not  gamble.  He 
was  temperate,  and  he  did  not  use  tobacco  in  any  form. 
Only  those  who  have  known  the  fearful  extent  to  which 
these  habits  prevail  among  our  public  men  can  appre-. 
ciate  the  honor  which  the  absence  of  them  confers  upon 
the  late  President.  His  honesty  passed  into  a  proverb, 
and  his  integrity  was  beyond  reproach.  It  was  not  called 
in  question,  even  in  the  height  of  political  excitement  and 
vituperation.  His  qualities  of  heart  were  such  as  com- 
mended him  to  all  men.  He  was  naturally  disposed  to 
think  well  of  his  race.  His  prepossessions  were  generally 
in  favor  of  a  man.  He  would  rather  love  than  hate  him ; 
in  fact,  he  seemed  as  if  he  could  not  hate  him  if  he  would. 
The  entire  absence  of  vindictiveness,  either  personal  or 
political,  was  one  of  the  ripe  fruits  of  his  native  tender- 


CHARLES    HENRY    HART.  303 

ness.  Was  he  ever  heard  to  have  said  a  hard  thing  of 
his  opponents,  or  known  to  have  uttered  a  single  word 
showing  personal  hate  or  even  personal  feeling  ?  Between 
him  and  his  predecessors  no  parallel  can  be  drawn,  for  no 
other  President  ever  held  the  reins  of  power  through 
four  years  of  virulent  rebellion.  It  is  therefore  impossi- 
ble to  say  how  much  better  or  how  much  worse  others 
would  have  done.  Not  graceful  nor  refined,  not  always 
using  the  English  language  correctly,  he  proved  to  be  a 
meet  and  proper  man  for  the  times.  He  had  the  greatness 
of  goodness  ;  not  a  powerful  nor  a  brilliant  intellect,  but 
plain,  practical  good  sense  ;  a  sincere  purpose  to  do  right ; 
an  eminent  Catholic  spirit  that  was  ready  to  listen  to  all 
sides,  and  a  firm,  unshaken  belief  in  the  expediency  of 
justice.  When  others  with  higher  and  more  profound 
faculties  might  have  failed,  he  succeeded,  guided  by  his 
matchless  sagacity  and  prudence  and  common  sense  and 
native  shrewdness.  His  thoughts  were  his  own ;  they 
were  fresh  and  original,  and  were  clothed  with  a  quaint- 
ness,  a  directness,  a  simplicity  of  style,  peculiar  to  him- 
self. He  had  a  vein  of  humor  which  marked  him  from 
all  other  men  in  his  position,  and  lost  him,  perhaps,  the 
reputation  of  official  dignity ;  and  yet  this  very  humor, 
which  in  most  important  emergencies  could  not  refrain 
from  making  the  witty  repartee  or  telling  the  pointed 
anecdote,  undoubtedly  helped  him  to  endure  those 
fatigues  and  cares  under  which  he  would  otherwise  have 
sunken. 

In  the  words  of  Daniel  Webster  on  the  death  of 
President  Taylor  :  "  He  has  left  on  the  minds  of  the 
country  a  strong  impression  ;  first,  of  his  absolute  honesty 


3°4 


CHARLES    HENRY    HART. 


and  integrity  of  character ;  next,  of  his  sound,  practical 
good  sense ;  and  lastly,  of .  the  mildness,  kindness  and 
friendliness  of  his  temper  towards  his  countrymen. 


PHILADELPHIA,  1882. 


G.     S.     HUB  BARD,  305 


MY  acquaintance  with  the  lamented  President  Lin- 
coln began  in  the  winter  of  1832-3,  during  the 
session  of  the  Legislature  of  this  State,  of  which  I  was  a 
member,  and  warmly  interested  in  procuring  an  act  for 
the  construction  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  for 
which  I  had  introduced  a  bill,  which  was  defeated.  I  then 
introduced  a  bill  for  a  railroad,  instead  of  a  canal,  which 
passed  the  House,  lost  in  the  Senate  by  the  casting  vote 
of  the  Speaker,  Zadoc  Casey.  At  the  next  session  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  a  member.  I,  as  a  lobbyist,  attended  that  and 
the  successive  sessions  until  the  passage  of  the  act  to 
construct  the  canal.  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  and  out  of  the  Leg- 
islature, favored  its  construction  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment,  by  his  advice,  and  rendered  efficient  aid.  Indeed, 
I  very  much  doubt  if  the  bill  could  have  passed  as  early 
as  it  did  without  his  valuable  help.  We  were  thrown 
much  together,  our  intimacy  increasing.  I  never  had  a 
friend  to  whom  I  was  more  warmly  attached.  His  char- 
acter was  nearly  faultless.  Possessing  a  warm,  generous 
heart,  genial,  affable,  honest,  courteous  to  his  opponents, 
persevering,  industrious  in  research,  never  losing  sight  of 
the  principal  point  under  discussion,  aptly  illustrating  by 
his  stories,  always  brought  into  good  effect ;  he  was  free 
from  political  trickery  or  denunciation  of  the  private 
character  of  his  opponents  ;  in  debate  firm  and  collected  ; 
with  "  charity  towards  all,  malice  towards  none,"  he  won 
the  confidence  of  the  public,  even  of  his  political  oppo- 
nents. 

20 


306  G.     S.     HUB  BARD. 

His  elevation  to  the  highest  honor  within  the  gift  of 
the  people  did  not  alter  his  feelings  or  deportment  towards 
his  acquaintances,  however  humble.  The  poor  and  igno- 
rant, the  wealthy  and  educated,  were  met  with  the  same 
cordiality  and  frankness.  This  manly  and  noble  course 
pre-eminently  distinguished  him  ;  he  had  a  heart  full  of 
tenderness  for  his  fellow-man,  wholly  void  of  selfish  pride, 
vanity  or  cringing  adulation.  If  he,  by  industry  and  per- 
severance, gifted  by  a  superior  mind,  advanced  himself 
in  social  position,  he  did  not  lose  sight  of  the  great  prin- 
ciple ever  guiding  him,  that  "  all  men  were  created 
equal." 

I  called  on  him  in  Washington  the  year  of  his  inaugura- 
tion ;  was  alone  with  him  for  an  hour  or  more ;  found  him 
greatly  changed,  his  countenance  bearing  an  expression 
of  great  mental  anxiety,  and  the  whole  topic  of  our  con- 
versation was  the  then  exist:ng  civil  war,  which  affected 
him  deeply,  though  he  spoke  with  confidence  of  the  sup- 
pression of  the  rebellion,  rejoicing  that  so  large  a  portion 
of  the  people  were  for  using  the  resources  of  our  country 
to  bring  back  the  rebellious  States  into  the  Union.  Ex- 
amining the  map  hanging  on  the  wall,  pointing  out  the 
points  most  strong  in  the  rebel  district,  he  said  :  "  Doug- 
las and  myself  have  studied  this  map  very  closely.  I 
am  indebted  to  him  for  wise  counsel.  I  have  no  better 
adviser,  and  feel  under  great  obligations  to  him."  I  left 
Washington  with  a  feeling  our  nation  had  not  misplaced 
its  confidence  in  choosing  him  as  its  President.  Two 
years  after  I  again  visited  Washington  and  went  to  the 
White  House  to  pay  my  respects  to  him  ;  in  the  ante- 


G.     S.     HUBBARD.  307 

room  was  my  friend  Thos.  L.  Forrest ;  sending  in  our 
cards,  and  waiting  nearly  two  hours  without  seeing  him, 
conversing  by  the  window  opening  upon  the  fine  grounds 
and  garden  at  the  rear  of  the  White  House.  About  six 
o'clock  the  band  from  the  navy  yard  appeared  and  bege.n 
to  play,  when  Mr.  Forrest  said:  "This  is  Saturday, 
when  the  grounds  are  open  to  the  public  ;  the  President 
will  present  himself  on  the  balcony  below ;  let  us  join  the 
crowd."  So  we  adjourned  and  filed  in  with  the  crowd. 
The  President,  with  Adjutant-Gen.  Thomas,  were  seated 
on  the  balcony.  The  crowd  was  great,  marching  com- 
pactly past  the  President,  the  men  raising  their  hats  in 
salutation.  As  my  friend  and  myself  passed  he  said  to  me  : 
"  The  President  seems  to  notice  you — turn  toward  him." 
"No,"  I  said,  "I  don't  care  to  be  recognized."  At  that 
instant  Mr.  Lincoln  started  from  his  seat,  advancing 
quickly  to  the  iron  railing,  and  leaning  over,  beckoning 
with  his  long  arm,  called  :  "  Hubbard!  Hubbard  !  come 
here."  I  left  the  ranks  and  ascended  the  stone  steps  to 
the  gate  of  the  balcony,  which  was  locked,  Gen.  Thomas 
saying :  "  Wait  a  moment,  I  will  get  the  key."  "  Never 
mind,  General,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  Hubbard  is  used  to 
jumping — he  can  scale  that  fence."  I  climbed  over  and 
for  about  an  hour  we  conversed  and  watched  the  large 
crowd,  the  rebel  flag  being  in  sight  on  Arlington 
Heights.  This  was  the  last  time  I  ever  saw  his  face  in 
life,  little  thinking  at  the  time  I  should  be  one  of  the 
escorts  of  his  honored  remains  from  this  city  to  his  last 
resting-place  amid  the  tears  of  a  sorrowing  nation.  I 
simply  mention  the  circumstance  of  his  calling  me  to  sit 


3o8  G.     S.     IIUBBARD. 

with  him,  as  an  evidence  of  his  being  unchanged  by  the 
dignity  of  his  office.  I  was  but  an  humble  citizen,  entitled 
to  no  such  notice.  It  was  the  Lincoln  of  olden  times  un- 
expectedly seeing  the  familiar  face  of  a  friend  of  former 
years. 


CHICAGO,  1882. 


E.     B.     MARTIN  DALE.  309 


IF  "  by  his  works  he  be  known,"  he  was  the  greatest 
statesman  America  ever  produced.  In  less  than  a 
hundred  years  his  name  will  be  honored  and  revered  above 
that  of  any  other  American  name.  He  was  a  great  man 
of  the  people,  and  the  greatest  advocate  of  universal  lib- 
erty —  the  first  President  who  believed  in  the  letter  and 
spirit  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 


WASHINGTON,  1880. 


3io  SPEECH    AT    A     LADIES'    FAIR. 


SPEECH    AT    A    LADIES'     FAIR     IN     WASH- 

INGTON, 

MARCH  21,   1864. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  : — I  appear  to  say  but  a 
word.  This  extraordinary  war  in  which  we  are  engaged 
falls  heavily  upon  all  classes  of  people,  but  the  most 
heavily  upon  the  soldiers.  For  it  has  been  said,  "All 
that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life,"  and,  while  all 
contribute  of  their  substance,  the  soldier  puts  his  life  at 
stake,  and  often  yields  it  up  in  his  country's  cause.  The 
highest  merit,  then,  is  due  to  the  soldier. 

In  this  extraordinary  war,  extraordinary  developments 
have  manifested  themselves,  such  as  have  not  been  seen 
in  former  wars ;  and,  among  these  manifestations,  noth- 
ing has  been  more  remarkable  than  these  fairs  for  the  re- 
lief of  suffering  soldiers  and  their  families,  and  the  chiet 
agents  in  these  fairs  are  the  women  of  America  ! 

I  am  not  accustomed  to  the  use  of  language  of  eulogy 
I  have  never  studied  the  art  of  paying  compliments  to 
women  ;  but  I  must  say,  that,  if  all  that  has  been  said  by 
orators  and  poets  since  the  creation  of  the  world  in  praise 
of  women  were  applied  to  the  women  of  America,  it 
would  not  do  them  justice  for  their  conduct  during  the 
war.  I  will  close  by  saying,  God  bless  the  women  of 
America. 


LEV  I    P.     MORTON— W.     S.     HANCOCK.          311 


I      HAD  only  a  slight  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,   but  yield  to  no  one  in  veneration  for  his 
memory,  or  admiration  for  his  grand   qualities  of  head 
and  heart. 


LEGATION  DES  ETATS-UNIS  D'AMERIQUE, 
PARIS,  1 88 1. 


MR.  LINCOLN'S  history  will  be  "of  all  time,"  and 
he  will  be  recalled  as  one  of  the  grandest  figures 
of  the  world's  history. 


GOVERNOR'S  ISLAND,  1881. 


312       LETTER     WRITTEN     TCf    A.     G.     HODGES. 


LETTER  WRITTEN  TO   A.  G.  HODGES, 
APRIL  4,  1864. 

I  ATTEMPT  no  compliment  to  my  own  sagacity.  I 
claim  not  to  have  controlled  events,  but  confess  plainly 
that  events  have  controlled  me.  Now,  at  the  end  of 
three  years'  struggle,  the  nation's  condition  is  not  what 
either  party  or  any  man  devised  or  expected.  God  alone 
can  claim  it.  Whither  it  is  tending  seems  plain.  If  God 
now  wills  the  removal  of  a  great  wrong,  and  wills,  also, 
that  we  of  the  North,  as  well  as  you  of  the  South,  shall 
pay  fairly  for  our  complicity  in  that  wrong,  impartial  his- 
tory will  find  therein  new  causes  to  attest  and  revere  the 
justice  and  goodness  of  God. 


ISAAC    M'LELLAN.  313 


When  clos'd  years  since  the  fratricidal  strife, 

One  latest  victim  offer'd  up  his  life, 

That  plain,  good  man,  who,  with  life's  parting  tone, 

Breath'd  charity  for  all,  and  malice  toward  none  ; 

So  kind,  so  truthful,  modest  and  sincere, 

Prompt  to  forgive  the  injury  and  the  sneer  ; 

Brimming  with  gracious  love,  for  all  a  smile, 

In  whose  big  heart  there  was  no  taint  of  guile, 

Lamented  Lincoln,  sacred  be  his  rest  ! 

With  all  his  mourning  country's  honors  blest ! 

Long  will  the  land  his  tragic  end  deplore, 

The  noblest  martyr  when  the  war  was  o'er. 

He  freed  the  slave  !     No  chains  now  bind  his  hand, 
All  disenthrall'd  he  proudly  walks  the  land  ; 
'Twas  Lincoln's  voice  emancipation  gave, 
That  snapt  the  gyves  and  fetters  of  the  slave, 
Bade  him  that  was  a  slave  be  slave  no  more, 
Free  as  God's  blessed  beams  from  heaven  that  pour. 


SHELTER  ISLAND,  1880. 


3i4    SPEECH    AT    THE    OPENING    OF    A     FAIR. 


SPEECH 

AT  THE  OPENING  OF   A    FAIR   IN  BALTIMORE,  FOR  THE    BENE« 
FIT   OF    THE    UNITED    STATES    SANITARY    COMMIS- 
SION,   APRIL,     1864. 

CALLING  it  to  mind  that  we  are  in  Baltimore,  we  can- 
not fail  to  note  that  the  world  moves.  Looking  upon 
these  many  people  I  see  assembled  here  to  serve,  as  they 
best  may,  the  soldiers  of  the  Union,  it  at  once  occurs  to 
me  that  three  years  ago  the  same  soldiers  could  not  so 
much  as  pass  through  Baltimore.  The  change  from  then 
till  now  is  both  great  and  gratifying.  I  would  say,  bless- 
ings upon  the  men  who  have  wrought  the  change,  and 
the  fair  women  who  strive  to  reward  them  for  it ! 

When  the  war  began,  three  years  ago,  neither  party  nor 
any  man  expected  it  would  last  till  now.  Each  looked  for 
the  end,  in  some  way,  long  ere  to-day.  Neither  did  any 
anticipate  that  domestic  slavery  would  be  much  affected 
by  the  war.  But  here  we  are ;  the  war  has  not  ended, 
and  slavery  has  been  much  affected — how  much  need  not 
now  be  recounted.  So  true  it  is  that  man  proposes  and 
God  disposes. 

The  world  has  never  had  a  good  definition  of  the 
word  liberty,  and  the  American  people,  just  now,  are 
much  in  want  of  one.  We  all  declare  for  liberty,  but  in 
using  the  same  word  we  do  not  all  mean  the  same  thing 
With  some  the  word  liberty  may  mean  for  each  man  to  do 
as  he  pleases  with  himself,  and  the  product  of  his  labor  ; 


SPEECH    AT    THE    OPENING    OF    A     FAIR.  315 

while  to  others  the  same  word  may  mean  for  some  men 
to  do  as  they  please  with  other  men,  and  the  product  of 
other  men's  labor.  Here  are  two,  not  only  different,  but 
incompatible  things,  called  by  the  same  name,  liberty. 
And  it  follows  that  each  of  these  things  is,  by  the  respect- 
ive parties,  called  by  two  different  and  incompatible 
names — liberty  and  tyranny. 

The  shepherd  drives  the  wolf  from  the  sheep's  throat, 
for  which  the  sheep  thanks  the  shepherd  as  a  liberator, 
while  the  wolf  denounces  him  for  the  same  act,  as  the  de- 
stroyer of  liberty,  especially  as  the  sheep  was  a  black  one. 
Plainly,  the  sheep  and  the  wolf  are  not  agreed  upon  a 
definition  of  the  word  liberty,  and  precisely  the  same 
difference  prevails  to-day  among  us  human  creatures, 
even  in  the  North,  and  all  professing  to  love  liberty. 


3i6  REPLY     TO    A     COMMITTEE. 


REPLY    TO     A      COMMITTEE     FROM     THE 
METHODIST  CONFERENCE, 
MAY  14,   1864. 

NOBLY  sustained  as  the  Government  has  been  by  all 
the  churches,  I  would  utter  nothing  which  might  in  the 
least  appear  invidious  against  any.  Yet  without  this  it 
may  fairly  be  said  that  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
not  less  devoted  than  the  rest,  is,  by  its  greater  numbers, 
the  most  important  of  all.  It  is  no  fault  in  others  that 
the  Methodist  Church  sends  'more  soldiers  to  the  field, 
more  nurses  to  the  hospitals,  and  more  prayers  to  heaven 
than  any.  God  bless  the  Methodist  Church  !  bless  all  the 
churches,  and  blessed  be  God !  who  in  this  our  great 
trial  giveth  us  the  churches. 


WILLIAM    C.    MOREY.  317 


HE  was  the  true  American,  at  one  with  the  people 
in  his  origin,  his  simplicity  of  character,  his 
rugged  manliness,  and  his  stern  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
civil  liberty.  While  he  lived,  he  was  the  friend  of  his 
country,  and  when  he  died  the  sense  of  personal  bereave- 
ment darkened  every  American  home.  In  the  supreme 
crisis  of  American  history,  his  faith  in  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  popular  institutions  never  failed  him.  By 
that  faith  he  saved  the  nation,  he  widened  the  bounds  of 
human  freedom,  and  he  rendered  forever  sacred  those 
principles  of  government  which  rest  upon  justice  and  the 
equal  rights  of  man.  His  real  epitaph  cannot  be  written. 
It  has  received  its  truest  expression  in  the  silent  memory 
of  those  great  historic  deeds  with  which  his  name  is  asso- 
ciated, and  which  can  never,  as  long  as  liberty  is  cherished 
by  man,  be  effaced  from  the  records  of  time. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ROCHESTER,   1880. 


3i8  RESPONSE. 


RESPONSE     TO    A    DELEGATION    OF    THE 
NATIONAL  UNION  LEAGUE. 

I  CAN  only  say,  in  response  to  the  kind  remarks  of 
your  chairman,  as  I  suppose,  that  I  am  very  grateful  for 
the  renewed  confidence  which  has  been  accorded  to  me 
both  by  the  Convention  and  by  the  National  League.  I 
am  not  insensible  at  all  to  the  personal  compliment  there 
is  in  this,  and  yet  I  do  not  allow  myself  to  believe  that 
any  but  a  small  portion  of  it  is  to  be  appropriated  as  a 
personal  compliment ;  that  really  «the  Convention  and 
the  Union  League  assembled  with  a  higher  view — that  of 
taking  care  of  the  interests  of  the  country  for  the  present 
and  the  great  future — and  that  the  part  I  am  entitled  to 
appropriate  as  a  compliment  is  only  that  part  which  I 
may  lay  hold  of  as  being  the  opinion  of  the  Convention 
and  of  the  League,  that  I  am  not  entirely  unworthy  to  be 
intrusted  with  the  place  which  I  have  occupied  for  the 
last  three  years.  But  I  do  not  allow  myself  to  suppose 
that  either  the  Convention  or  the  League  have  concluded 
to  decide  that  I  am  either  the  greatest  or  best  man  in 
America,  but  rather  they  have  concluded  that  it  is  not 
best  to  swap  horses  while  crossing  the  river,  and  have 
further  concluded  that  I  am  not  so  poor  a  horse  that 
they  might  not  make  a  botch  of  it  in  trying  to  swap. 


P.     T.    BARNUM.  3!9 


A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN'S  cheerfulness  and  wit  were 
JL~~\  invaluable  to  him  in  the  trying  years  of  our  civil 
war.  Cheerfulness  to  a  good  man  or  woman  is  always  a 
mighty  sustaining  power.  Mr.  Lincoln's  unwavering 
faith  that  good  would  finally  overcome  evil  buoyed  his 
spirits  through  the  darkest  hours.  Of  Mr.  Lincoln's  in- 
flexible honesty  of  purpose,  there  is  but  one  opinion 
throughout  the  world.  He  was  a  noble,  whole-souled, 
tender-hearted  man.  He  was  a  model  President  of  this 
model  Republic.  His  fame  is  justly  immortal. 


BRIDGEPORT,   1880. 


320     SPEECH    AT    THE    PHILADELPHIA    FAIR. 


SPEECH  AT  THE   PHILADELPHIA  FAIR, 
JUNE  1 6,   1864. 

WAR,  at  the  best,  is  terrible,  and  this  war  of  ours,  in 
its  magnitude  and  in  its  duration,  is  one  of  the  most  terri- 
ble. It  has  deranged  business  totally  in  many  localities, 
and  partially  in  all  localities.  It  has  destroyed  property 
and  ruined  homes ;  it  has  produced  a  national  debt  and 
taxation  unprecedented,  at  least  in  this  country  ;  it  has 
carried  mourning  to  almost  every  home,  until  it  can 
almost  be  said  that  the  "  heavens  are  hung  in  black." 
Yet  the  war  continues,  and  several  relieving  coincidents 
have  accompanied  it  from  the  very  beginning,  which  have 
not  been  known,  as  I  understand,  or  have  any  knowledge 
of,  in  any  former  wars  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  San- 
itary Commission,  with  all  its  benevolent  labors.;  the  Chris- 
tian Commission,  with  all  its  Christian  and  benevolent 
labors,  and  the  various  places,  arrangements,  so  to  speak, 
and  institutions,  have  contributed  to  the  comfort  and 
relief  of  the  soldiers. 

It  is  a  pertinent  question,  often  asked  in  the  mind 
privately,  and  from  one  to  the  other,  "  When  is  the  war 
to  end?"  Surely  I  feel  as  deep  an  interest  in  thk  ques- 
tion as  any  other  can,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  name  a  day,  a 
month,  or  a  year  when  it  is  to  end.  I  do  not  wish  to  run 
any  risk  of  seeing  the  time  come,  without  our  being  ready 
for  the  end,  for  fear  of  disappointment  because  the  time 
has  come  and  not  the  end.  We  accepted  this  war  for  an 


SPEECH    AT     THE    PHILADELPHIA    FAIR.     321 

object,  a  worthy  object,  and  the  war  will  end  when  that 
object  is  attained.  Under  God,  I  hope  it  never  will  end 
until  that  time.  Speaking  of  the  present  campaign, 
General  Grant  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  I  am  going 
through  on  this  line,  if  it  takes  all  summer."  This  war  has 
taken  three  years ;  it  was  begun  or  accepted  upon  the 
line  of  restoring  the  national  authority  over  the  whole 
national  domain,  and  for  the  American  people,  as  far  as 
my  knowledge  enables  me  to  speak,  I  say  we  are  going 
through  on  this  line,  if  it  takes  three  years  more. 

I  have  never  been  in  the  habit  of  making  predictions 
in  regard  to  the  war,  but  I  am  almost  tempted  to  make 
one.  If  I  were  to  hazard  it,  it  is  this  :  That  Grant  is 
this  evening,  with  General  Meade  and  General  Hancock, 
and  the  brave  officers  and  soldiers  with  him,  in  a  position 
from  whence  he  will  never  be  dislodged  until  Richmond 
is  taken.  And  I  have  but  one  single  proposition  to  put 
now,  and,  perhaps,  I  can  best  put  it  in  the  form  of  an  in- 
terrogative— If  I  shall  discover  that  General  Grant  and 
the  noble  officers  and  men  under  him  can  be  greater 
facilitated  in  their  work  by  a  sudden  pouring  forward  of 
men  and  assistance,  will  you  give  them  to  me  ?  Are  you 
ready  to  march?  [Cries  of  "yes."]  Then,  I  say,  stand 
ready,  for  I  am  watching  for  the  chance. 

21 


322       FROM    HIS    LETTER    OF    ACCEPTANCE. 


FROM  HIS   LETTER  OF  ACCEPTANCE, 

r 

JUNE  27,  1864. 

I  AM  especially  gratified  that  the  soldier  and  the  sea- 
man were  not  forgotten  by  the  convention,  as  they  for- 
ever must  and  will  be  remembered  by  the  grateful  coun- 
try for  whose  salvation  they  devote  their  lives. 


Cr.    S.    GRANT.  323 


A  MAN  of  great  ability,  pure  patriotism,  unselfish 
nature,  full  of  forgiveness  to  his  enemies,  bearing 
malice  toward  none,  he  proved  to  be  the  man  above  all 
others  for  the  great  struggle  through  which  the  nation 
had  to  pass  to  place  itself  among  the  greatest  in  the 
family  of  nations.  His  fame  will  grow  brighter  as  time 
passes  and  his  great  work  is  better  understood. 


GALENA,  1880. 


324  SAVING    A    LIFE. 


SAVING  A  LIFE. 

SOME  of  our  generals  complain  that  I  impair  discipline 
and  subordination  in  the  army  by  my  pardons  and  res- 
pites, but  it  makes  me  rested,  after  a  day's  hard  work, 
if  I  can  find  some  good  excuse  for  saving  a  man's  life ; 
and  I  go  to  bed  happy  as  I  think  how  joyous  the  signing 
of  my  name  will  make  him  and  his  family  and  his  friends. 


To   WHOM   IT   MAY   CONCERN  I 

Any  propositions  which  embrace  the  restoration  of 
peace,  the  integrity  of  the  whole  Union,  and  the  abandon 
ment  of  slavery,  and  which  come  by  and  with  an  author- 
ity that  can  control  the  armies  now  at  war  against  the 
United  States,  will  be  received  and  considered  by  the 
Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  will  be 
met  by  liberal  terms  on  other  substantial  and  collateral 
points ;  and  the  bearer  or  bearers  thereof  shall  have  safe 
conduct  both  ways. 

JULY  1 8,  1864. 


THOS.      WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON.  325 


PRESIDENT  LINCOLN'S  "Gettysburg  address" 
has  always  seemed  to  me  the  high-water  mark  of 
American  oratory.     It  proves,  what  so  many  have  not  dis- 
covered, that  the  highest  eloquence  is  simple. 


CAMBRIDGE,  1880. 


326  SPEECH    TO    A     SERENADING     CLUB. 


SPEECH 

TO   A   SERENADING   CLUB   OF    PENNSYLVANIANS   ON    THE 
NIGHT   OF    HIS   SECOND    ELECTION,    1864. 

EVEN  before  I   had  been  informed  by  you  that  this 
compliment  was  paid  me  by  loyal  citizens  of  Pennsylvania 
friendly  to  me,   I    had   inferred  that  you  were  of  that 
portion   of    my   countrymen,  who   think   that   the   best 
interests  of  the  nation  are  to  be  subserved  by  the  support 
of  the  present  administration.     I  do  not  pretend  to  say 
that  you,  who  think  so,  embrace  all  the  patriotism  and 
loyalty  of  the  country ;  but   I   do  believe,   and   I  trust 
without  personal  interest,  that  the  welfare  of  the  country 
does  require  that  such  support  and  indorsement  be  given. 
I  earnestly  believe  that  the  consequences  of  this  day's 
work,  if  it  be  as  you  assume  and  as  now  seems  probable, 
will  be  to  the  lasting  advantage,  if  not  to  the  very  salva- 
tion, of  the  country.     I  cannot,  at  this  hour,  say  what 
has  been  the  result  of  the  election  ;  but  whatever  it  may 
be,  I  have  no  desire  to  modify  this  opinion  :  that  all  who 
have  labored  to-day  in  behalf  of  the  Union  organization 
have  wrought  for  the  best  interest  of  their  country  and 
the  world,  not  only  for  the  present,  but  for  all  future  ages. 
/  am  thankful  to  God  for  this  approval  of  the  people  ;  but 
while  deeply  grateful  for  this  mark  of  their  confidence  in 
me,  if  I  know  my  heart,  my  gratitude  is  free  from  any 
taint  of  personal  triumph.     I  do  not  impugn  the  motives 
of  any  one  opposed  to   me.     It  is  no  pleasure  to  me  to 
triumph  over  any  one,  but  I  give  thanks  to  the  Almighty 
for  this  evidence  of  the  peoples  resolution  to  stand  by  free 
government  and  the  rights  of  humanity. 


£EJVSON    J.     LOSSING.  327 


MR.  LINCOLN  A   STATESMAN. 

"  I  "HERE  is  a  popular  impression  that  the  wise  states- 
J-  manship  displayed  by  our  national  government 
during  the  late  civil  war,  in  its  foreign  relations,  was  al- 
most wholly  due  to  the  direction  of  the  intellect  and  judg- 
ment of  Secretary  Seward.  It  is  attested,  on  the  contrary, 
by  persons  supposed  to  have  knowledge  of  some  of  the 
secrets  of  the  Cabinet  of  President  Lincoln,  that  some  of 
the  wisest  acts  of  statesmanship  that  marked  the  career  of 
Mr.  Seward  in  his  intercourse  with  foreign  governments, 
during  the  administration  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  were  inspired  by 
the  suggestions  of  the  President.  In  support  of  the  latter 
position,  a  single  incident  may  suffice,  which  came  under 
the  observation  of  the  writer.  It  had  relation  to  perhaps 
the  most  delicate  question  of  right  which  arose  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  during  that  war. 
The  incident  was  the  surrender  of  Mason  and  Slidell, 
Confederate  ambassadors  to  European  courts. 

The  writer  was  in  Washington  when  the  news  reached 
there  of  the  capture  of  those  two  arch-conspirators  against 
the  life  of  the  republic,  by  Captain  Wilkes,  commander  of 
the  national  steam  sloop-of-war  San  Jacinto,  whom  he  had 
forcibly  taken  from  the  British  mail  steamer  Trent.  The 
act  of  Captain  Wilkes  was  universally  applauded  by  all 
loyal  Americans,  and  the  land  was  filled  with  rejoicings 
because  two  of  the  most  mischievous  men  among  the 
enemies  of  the  Government  were  in  custody.  For  the 


3:8  £  EN  SON    /.     LOS  SING. 

moment,  men  did  not  stop  to  consider  the  law  or  the  ex- 
pediency involved  in  the  act.  Public  honors  were 
tendered  to  Captain  Wilkes,  and  resolutions  of  thanks 
were  passed  by  public  bodies.  The  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  wrote  him  a  congratulatory  letter  on  the  "  great 
public  services  "  he  had  rendered  in  "  capturing  the  rebel 
emissaries,  Mason  and  Slidoll,"  and  assured  him  that  his 
conduct  had  "  the  emphatic  approval  of  the  department." 
The  House  of  Representatives  tendered  him  their  thanks 
for  the  service  he  had  done.  But  there  was  one  thought- 
ful man  in  the  nation,  in  whom  was  vested  the  tremen- 
dous executive  power  of  the  republic  at  that  time,  and 
whose  vision  was  constantly  endeavoring  to  explore  the 
mysteries  of  the  near  future,  who  had  indulged  calmer 
and  wiser  thoughts  than  most  men  at  that  critical  mo- 
ment, because  his  feelings  were  kept  in  subjection  to  his 
judgment  by  a  sense  of  heavy  responsibility.  That  man 
was  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  writer  was  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  War 
when  the  telegraphic  dispatch  announcing  the  capture  of 
Mason  and  Slidell  was  brought  in  and  read.  He  can 
never  forget  the  scene  that  ensued.  Led  by  Secretary 
Stanton,  who  was  followed  by  Governor  Andrew  of 
Massachusetts,  and  others  who  were  present,  cheer 
after  cheer  was  heartily  given  by  the  company.  A  little 
later,  the  writer,  accompanied  by  the  late  Elisha 
Whittlesey,  then  the  venerable  First  Comptroller  of  the 
Treasury,  was  favored  with  a  brief  interview  with  the 
President,  when  the  clear  judgment  of  that  far-seeing  and 
sagacious  statesman  uttered  through  his  lips  the  words 


BENSON    J.     LOSSING,  329 

which  formed  the  suggestion  of  and  the  key-note  to  the 
judicious  action  of  the  Secretary  of  State  afterwards. 

"  I  fear  the  traitors  will  prove  to  be  white  elephants," 
said  Mr.  Lincoln.  "  We  must  stick  to  American  princi- 
ples concerning  the  rights  of  neutrals,"  he  continued.  "  We 
fought  Great  Britain  for  insisting,  by  theory  and  practice, 
on  the  right  to  do  just  what  Captain  Wilkes  has  just 
done.  If  Great  Britain  shall  now  protest  against  the  act 
and  demand  their  release,  we  must  give  them  up,  apolo- 
gize for  the  act  as  a  violation  of  our  doctrines,  and  thus 
forever  bind  her  over  to  keep  the  peace  in  relation  to 
neutrals,  and  so  acknowledge  that  she  has  been  wrong 
for  sixty  years." 

Great  Britain  did  protest  and  make  the  demand,  also 
made  preparations  for  war  against  the  United  States  at  ' 
the  same  moment.  On  the  same  day  when  Lord  John 
Russell  sent  the  protest  and  demand  to  Lord  Lyons,  the 
British  minister  at  Washington,  Secretary  Seward  for- 
warded a  dispatch-to  Minister  Adams  in  London,  inform- 
ing him  that  this  Government  disclaimed  the  act  of 
Captain  Wilkes,  and  giving  assurance  that  it  was  ready  to 
make  a  satisfactory  arrangement  of  all  difficulties  arising 
out  of  the  unauthorized  act.  These  dispatches  passed 
each  other  in  mid-ocean. 

The  Government,  in  opposition  to  popular  sentiment, 
decided  at  once  to  restore  Mason  and  Slidell  to  the  pro* 
tection  of  the  British  flag.  It  was  soon  afterwards  done, 
war  between  the  two  nations  was  averted,  and,  in  the 
language  of  President  Lincoln,  the  British  Government 
was  "forever  bound  to  keep  the  peace  in  relation  to 
neutrals." 


33° 


BENSON    J.     LOSSING. 


The  wise  statesmanship  exhibited  at  that  critical  time 
was  originated  by  Abraham  Lincoln. 


DOVER  PLAINS,  1882. 


S.     G.    BARNES— /.     M.     BAfLEY.  331 


r  I  ^HE  right  man  in  the  right  place  was  never  more 
JL  clearly  seen  than  in  the  story  of  President  Lin- 
coln. His  simplicity  and  humor,  his  patient  wisdom  and 
hopeful  courage,  his  conspicuous  integrity  and  universal 
charity  made  him  by  all  odds  the  most  impressive  figure 
of  our  dark  days.  And  coming  years  can  only  make  more 
tender  the  affection  and  more  profound  the  reverence 
which  his  own  age  has  been  proud  to  give  to  the  savior 
of  his  country. 


1880. 


IT  must  be  confessed  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  early  life  gave 
no  promise  of  the  power  he  showed  at  the  head  of 
the  nation  ;  but  I  believe  he  was  born  for  the  emergency, 
and  when  it  came  I  am  confident  that  of  the  three  in- 

• 

terested — the  emergency,  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  American 
public — the  emergency  was  the  most  completely  aston- 
ished. It  is  my  humble  judgment  that  in  all  the  positions 
the  great  crisis  forced  him  into  he  was  a  perfect  fit. 


DANEURY,  1882. 


332       ADDRESS     TO     THE    POLITICAL     CLUBS. 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  POLITICAL  CLUBS. 

IT  has  long  been  a  grave  question  whether  any 
government  not  too  strong  for  the  liberties  of  its  people 
can  be  strong  enough  to  maintain  its  existence  in  great 
emergencies. 

On  this  point  the  present  rebellion  has  brought  our 
republic  to  .a  severe  test,  and  a  presidential  election 
occurring  in  regular  course  during  the  rebellion,  has 
added  not  a  little  to  the  strain.  If  the  loyal  people, 
united,  were  put  to  the  utmost  of  their  strength  by  the 
rebellion,  must  they  not  fail  when  divided  and  partially 
paralyzed  by  a  political  war  among  themselves.  ? 

But  the  election  was  a  necessity.  We  cannot  have  a 
free  government  without  elections  ;  and  if  the  rebellion 
could  force  us  to  forego  or  postpone  a  national  election, 
it  might  fairly  claim  to  have  already  conquered  and 
ruined  us.  . 

The  strife  of  the  election  is  but  human  nature  prac- 
tically applied  to  the  facts  in  the  case.  What  has  oc- 
curred in  this  case  must  ever  recur  in  similar  cases. 
Human  nature  will  not  change.  In  any  future  great 
national  trial,  compared  with  the  men  who  have  passed 
through  this,  we  shall  have  as  weak  and  as  strong,  as 
silly  and  as  wise,  as  bad  and  as  good.  Let  us  therefore 
study  the  incidents  of  this  as  philosophy  to  learn  wisdom 
from,  and  none  of  them  as  wrongs  to  be  revenged. 

While  I  am  deeply  sensible  to  the  high  compliment 


ADDRESS     TO     THE    POLITICAL     CLUBS.       333 

of  a  re-election,  and  duly  grateful,  as  I  trust,  to  Almighty 
God  for  having  directed  my  countrymen  to  a  right  con- 
clusion, as  I  think,  for  their  own  good,  it  adds  nothing 
to  my  satisfaction  that  any  other  man  may  be  dis- 
appointed or  pained  by  the  result  May  I  ask  those 
who  have  not  differed  with  me  to  join  with  me  in  this 
same  spirit  towards  those  who  have  ? 


334          INTERVIEW     WITH    A     GENTLEMAN. 


INTERVIEW  WITH  A  GENTLEMAN. 

THERE  have  been  men  base  enough  to  propose  to  me 
to  return  to  slavery  the  black  warriors  of  Port  Hudson 
and  Olustee,  and  thus  win  the  respect  of  the  masters  they 
fought.  Should  I  do  so,  I  should  deserve  to  be  damned 
in  time  and  eternity.  Come  what  will,  I  will  keep  my 
faith  with  friend  and  foe.  My  enemies  pretend  I  am 
now  carrying  on  this  war  for  the  sole  purpose  of  aboli- 
tion. So  long  as  I  am  President,  it  shall  be  carried  on 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  restoring  the  Union.  But  no 
human  power  can  subdue  this  rebellion  without  the  use 
of  the  emancipation  policy,  and  every  other  policy  cal- 
culated to  weaken  the  moral  and  physical  forces  of  the 
rebellion. 

AUGUST,  1864. 


JAMES    SHRIGLEY.  335 


MY  first  visit  with  Mi  Lincoln  was  a  few  days  before 
he  issued  his  Emancipation  Proclamation,  when  I 
was  introduced  by  the  Hon.  John  Covode.  The  President 
was  walking  his  room,  apparently  under  great  excitement, 
and  spoke  to  Mr.  Covode  in  nearly  the  following  words, 
which  made  a  deep  impression  on  my  mind :  "  I  have 
studied  that  matter  well ;  my  mind  is  made  up — it  must 
be  done.  I  am  driven  to  it.  There  is  to  me  no  other 
way  out  of  our  troubles.  But  although  my  duty  is  plain, 
it  is  in  some  respects  painful,  and  I  trust  the  people  will 
understand  that  I  act  not  in  anger,  but  in  expectation  of 
a  greater  good."  These  few  words  revealed  to  me  some 
of  the  noble  attributes  of  his  nature.  "  I  do  it  not  in 
anger,  but  in  expectation  of  a  greater  good."  Nothing 
but  the  honest  sense  of  duty  could  have  induced  him  to 
issue  that  proclamation,  and  this  he  desired  the  people  to 
know,  that  his  motives  might  not  be  misunderstood.  No 
man  was  ever  more  free  from  the  spirit  of  revenge  or 
more  conscientious  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties.  Pres- 
ident Lincoln  was  also  remarkably  tolerant.  He  was 
the  friend  of  all,  and  never,  to  my  knowledge,  gave  the 
influence  of  his  great  name  to  encourage  sectarianism  in 
any  of  its  names  or  forms ;  he  had  "  charity  for  all  and 
malice  toward  none." 

The  following  is  in  proof.  Immediately  after  the 
earliest  battles  of  the  war  most  of  the  sick  and  wounded 
were  brought  to  the  Philadelphia  hospitals  for  treatment, 
and  I  was  in  daily  receipt  of  letters  from  my  denomina- 


336  JAMES    SH RIG  LEY. 

tional  friends  soliciting  me  to  visit  husbands  and  brothers 
who  were  among  the  sick  and  wounded.  As  much  of 
my  time  was  thus  occupied,  and  at  considerable  expense, 
it  was  suggested  by  the  Hon.  Henry  D.  Moore  that 
application  be  made  for  the  position  of  hospital  chaplain, 
and  it  was  on  the  recommendation  of  Mr.  Moore  and 
Governor  Curtin  that  the  President  made  the  nomination. 
Soon  as  it  was  announced  in  the  papers  that  my  name 
had  been  sent  to  the  Senate  for  confirmation  a  self-con- 
stituted committee  of  "  Young  Christians "(?)  consulted 
with  a  few  others,  as  bigoted  as  themselves,  and  volun- 
teered their  services  to  visit  Washington  and  try  to  induce 
the  President  to  withdraw  the  name.  It  so  happened 
that  when  these  gentlemen  called  on  the  President  Mr. 
Covode  was  present  and  made  known  the  interview  to  a 
reporter,  and  it  thus  became  public.  It  was  in  substance 
as  follows : 

THE    INTERVIEW. 

"We  have  called,  Mr.  President,  to  confer  with  you 
in  regard  to  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Shrigley,  of  Phila- 
delphia, as  hospital  chaplain." 

The  President  responded  :  "  Oh,  yes,  gentlemen  ;  I 
have  sent  his  name  to  the  Senate,  and  he  will  no  doubt 
be  confirmed  at  an  early  day." 

One  of  the  young  men  replied  :  "  We  have  not  come 
to  ask  for  the  appointment,  but  to  solicit  you  to  with- 
draw the  nomination." 

"Ah,"  said  Lincoln,  "that  alters  the  case;  but  on 
what  ground  do  you  wish  the  nomination  withdrawn  ?" 

The  answer  was,  "  Mr.  Shrigley  is .  not  sound  in  his 
theological  opinions." 


JAMES    SHR1GLEY.  337 

The  President  inquired  :  "  On  what  question  is  the 
gentleman  unsound  ?" 

Response. — "  He  does  not  believe  in  endless  punish- 
ment ;  not  only  so,  sir,  but  he  believes  that  even  the 
rebels  themselves  will  finally  be  saved." 

"  Is  that  so  ?"  inquired  the  President. 

The  members  of  the  committee  both  responded, 
"Yes,"  "Yes." 

"  Well,  gentlemen,  if  that  be  so,  and  there  is  any  way 
under  heaven  whereby  the  rebels  can  be  saved,  then,  for 
God's  sake  and  their  sakes,  let  the  man  be  appointed." 

And  he  was  appointed,  and  served  until  the  war 
closed.  In  relation  to  this  matter  the  Hon.  John  Covode 
wrote  Hon.  Henry  D.  Moore  as  follows  : 

"WASHINGTON,  2 Qth  January,  1863. 
"  DEAR  SIR  :  Your  friend  Mr.  Shrigley's  appointment 
was  sent  to  the  Senate  on  the  22d  inst.     It  gives  me 
pleasure  to  think  that  I  have  been  able  to  aid  you  in 
this  matter. 

"  Truly  yours,  JOHN  COVODE. 

"  P.  S. — Believing  that  both  you  and  I,  after  our  long 
public  services,  will  be  benefited  by  our  friend's  prayers, 
I  hope  we  shall  have  them. 

"J.  C." 


PHILADELPHIA,  1882. 
22 


338  LETTER     TO    MRS.     GURNEY. 

LETTER  TO   MRS.    ELIZA   P.    GURNEY. 

I  HAVE  not  forgotten,  probably  never  shall  forget,  the 
very  impressive  occasion  when  yourself  and  friends 
visited  me  on  a  Sabbath  forenoon  two  years  ago.  Nor 
shall  your  kind  letter,  written  nearly  a  year  later,  ever  be 
forgotten.  In  all  it  has  been  your  purpose  to  strengthen 
my  reliance  in  God.  I  am  much  indebted  to  the  good 
Christian  people  of  the  country  for  their  constant  prayers 
and  consolations,  and  to  no  one  of  them  more  than  to 
yourself.  The  purposes  of  the  Almighty  are  perfect  and 
must  prevail,  though  we  erring  mortals  may  fail  to  ac- 
curately perceive  them  in  advance.  We  hoped  for  a 
happy  termination  of  this  terrible  war  long  before  this, 
but  God  knows  best,  and  has  ruled  otherwise.  We  shall 
yet  acknowledge  his  wisdom  and  our  own  errors  therein  ; 
meanwhile  we  must  work  earnestly  in  the  best  light  he 
gives  us,  trusting  that  so  working  still  conduces  to  the 
great  ends  he  ordains.  Surely  he  intends  some  great 
good  to  follow  this  mighty  convulsion,  which  no  mortal 
could  make,  and  no  mortal  could  stay.  Your  people, 
the  Friends,  have  had,  and  are  having,  very  great  trials, 
on  principles  and  faith  opposed  to  both  war  and  oppres- 
sion, they  can  only  practically  oppose  oppression  by 
war.  In  this  hard  dilemma,  some  have  chosen  one  horn 
and  some  the  other.  For  those  appealing  to  me  on 
conscientious  grounds  I  have  done  and  shall  do  the  best 
I  could  and  can  in  my  own  conscience,  under  my  oath  to 
the  law.  That  you  believe  this  I  doubt  not,  and  believe 
I  shall  still  receive  for  my  country  and  myself  your 
earnest  prayers  to  our  Father  in  heaven. 


CECIL    F.    P.    BANCROFT— ASA     GRAY.         339 


THE  greatness  of  the  man  appears  not  so  much  in 
his  courage,  his  patience,  his  vigilance,  'his 
loyalty,  his  equanimity,  his  faith  in  God  and  man,  as  in 
that  instinct  of  timeliness  which  led  him  unerringly  to  seize 
upon  the  great  opportunity  at  its  very  full.  In  this  re- 
spect he  stands  without  a  peer. 


PHILLIPS  ACADEMY,  1880. 


typical  American,  pure  and  simple. 


_ 

>  '  < 

1880. 


340 "  REPLY    TO    A     COMMITTEE. 


REPLY 

TO    A    COMMITTEE    OF    LOYAL    COLORED     PEOPLE    OF    BALTI- 
MORE,   PRESENTING   THE    PRESIDENT   WITH    A    BIBLE 
COSTING   $580. 

I  CAN  only  say  now,  as  I  have  often  said  before,  that 
it  has  always  been  a  sentiment  with  me  that  all  mankind 
should  be  free.  So  far  as  I  have  been  able,  or  so  far  as 
came  within  my  sphere,  I  have  always  acted  as  I  believed 
was  right  and  just,  and  have  done  all  I  could  for  the 
good  of  mankind.  I  have  in  letters  and  documents  sent 
forth  from  this  office  expressed  myself  better  than  I  can 
now.  In  regard  to  the  Great  Book  I  have  only  to  say 
that  it  is  the  best  gift  which  God  has  given  man.  All 
the  good  from  the  Saviour  of  the  world  is  communicated 
to  us  through  this  book.  But  for  this  book  we  could  not 
know  right  from  wrong.  All  those  things  desirable  to 
man  are  contained  in  it 

OCTOBER,  1864. 


G.     T.    BEDELL  341 


A  S  the  best  contribution  which  I  can  make,  is  the  fol- 
JL\.  lowing  extract  from  a  letter  by  the  late  Rt.  Rev. 
Charles  P.  Mcllvaine,  D.D.,  D.C.L.,  who  knew  Mr.  Lin- 
coln well,  and  was  brought  into  official  relations  with  him. 
He  mourned  for  him,  not  only  as  I  do  for  a  great  presi- 
dent, but  for  a  personal  friend. 

"  The  man,  so  wise,  so  pure,  of  such  simplicity,  such 
inflexible  determination  to  the  right,  who  had  done  so 
well  in  duties  and  times  beyond  precedent  difficult  ;  who 
had  gone  on  winning  the  confidence,  admiration  and  love 
of  all  classes,  till  there  seemed  no  more  to  gain  ;  just  fin- 
ishing his  great  work,  just  about  to  reap  the  harvest  of 
all  his  toil,  just  showing  how  moderate  and  wise  and  ten- 
der he  was  going  to  be,  cut  down  by  an  assassin  !  Oh, 
how  it  has  smitten  the  nation's  heart  !" 

Responding  with  all  my  heart  to  such  an  estimate  of 
the  character  of  President  Lincoln. 


CLEVELAND,  1882. 


342    REMARKS     TO    A    NEW     YORK    REGIMENT. 


REMARKS  TO  THE  i89TH  NEW  YORK  REG 

MENT. 


IT  is  said  that  we  have  the  best  Government 
world  ever  knew,  and  I  am  glad  to  meet  you,  the  sup- 
porters of  that  Government.  To  you,  who  rendered  the 
hardest  work  in  its  support,  should  be  given  the  greatest 
credit.  Others  who  are  connected  with  it,  and  who 
occupy  higher  positions,  their  duties  can  be  dispensed 
with  ;  but  we  cannot  get  along  without  your  aid.  While 
others  differ  with  the  Administration,  and,  perhaps, 
honestly,  the  soldiers  generally  have  sustained  it  ;  they 
have  not  only  fought  right,  but,  so  far  as  could  be  judged 
from  their  actions,  they  have  voted  right,  and  I  for  om» 
thank  you  for  it. 

OCTOBER  24,  1864. 


VY.    £.    HAZEN. 


343 


MR.  LINCOLN  was  one  of  those  singular  men 
whom  the  great  unknown  power  brings  upon 
the  scenes  of  men's  actions  when  momentous  events  are 
about  to  transpire.  Lincoln,  more  than  any  man  ex- 
cept Washington,  came  forward  to  lead  successfully  the 
grand  advance  of  human  rights  and  progress,  growing  out 
of  the  development  of  the  new  continent,  America. 
That  he  was  all  that  his  best  admirers  can  claim,  is  abun- 
dantly shown  by  what  he  did,  and  the  judgment  of  the 
world  upon  it. 


0 


WASHINGTON,  1882. 


344  SPEECH    TO     THE    164  TH    OHIO. 


SPEECH  TO  THE  i64TH  OHIO. 

THERE  is  more  involved  in  this  contest  than  is  realized 
by  every  'one.  There  is  involved  in  this  struggle  the 
question  Whether  your  children  and  my  children  shall 
enjoy  the  privileges  we  have  enjoyed.  I  say  this  in 
order  to  impress  upon  you,  if  you  are  not  already  so  im- 
pressed, that  no  small  matter  should  divert  you  from  our 
great  purpose.  There  may  be  some  inequalities  in  the 
practical  application  of  our  system.  It  is  fair  that  each 
man  shall  pay  taxes  in  exact  proportion  to  the  value  of 
his  property ;  but  if  we  should  wait  before  collecting  a 
tax  to  adjust  the  taxes  upon  each  man  in  exact  proportion 
with  every  other  man,  we  should  never  collect  any  tax  at 
all.  There  may  be  mistakes  made.  Sometimes  things 
may  be  done  wrong,  while  the  officers  of  the  Government 
do  all  they  can  to  prevent  mistakes  ;  but  I  beg  of  you,  as 
citizens  of  this  great  republic,  not  to  let  your  minds  be 
carried  off  from  the  great  work  we  have  before  us. 

The  struggle  is  too  large  for  you  to  be  diverted  from 
it  by  any  small  matter.  When  you  return  to  your 
homes,  rise  up  to  the  dignity  of  a  generation  of  men 
worthy  of  a  free  Government,  and  we  will  carry  out  the 
work  we  have  commenced. 


JAMES.     FREEMAN    CLARKE.  345 


I  ONCE  had  a  long  day's  talk  about  Abraham  Lin- 
coln with  a  friend  in  Kentucky,  Joshua  F.  Speed, 
who  had  lived  in  intimate  relation  with  Lincoln  when  he 
was  a  young  lawyer  in  Springfield,  just  beginning  busi- 
ness. He  said  that  every  case  he  had  took  his  whole  in- 
terest and  attention.  Once  he  had  to  argue  a  case  in 
which  all  depended  on  finding  the  right  boundary  for  a 
piece  of  land  on  the  prairie.  There  are  no  stones  there 
for  boundaries,  and  few  trees,  so  the  surveyors  were  in 
the  habit  of  fixing  the  corners  of  the  lots  by  shoveling 
up  a  little  heap  of  earth.  But  it  happened  that  a  prairie 
squirrel,  or  gopher,  does  the  same  thing.  Hence  it  be- 
comes important  to  distinguish  between  the  mounds  made 
by  the  surveyor  and  those  made  by  the  gopher.  Lincoln 
sent  to  New  York  to  get  books  to  tell  him  of  the  habits  of 
the  gopher,  brought  them  into  court,  showed  the  judge 
and  jury  how  the  gopher  built  his  mound,  how  it  differed 
from  that  of  the  surveyor,  and  after  he  had  won  his  case, 
sat  up  late  in  the  night  still  studying  about  the  gopher, 
so  as  to  be  sure  he  knew  all  about  him. 


BOSTON,  1882, 


346     REPLY    TO    A    COMPANY    OF    CLERGYMEN. 


REPLY  TO  A  COMPANY  OF  CLERGYMEN. 

GENTLEMEN: — My  hope  of  success  in  this  great  and 
terrible  struggle  rests  on  that  immutable  foundation,  the 
justice  and  goodness  of  God.  And  when  events  are  very 
threatening  and  prospects  very  dark,  I  still  hope  in  some 
way,  which  man  cannot  see,  all  will  be  well  in  the  end, 
because  our  cause  is  just  and  God  is  on  our  side. 


JAMES    E.     MURDOCH.  347 


I  FIRST  made  Mr.  Lincoln's  acquaintance  in  1860, 
while  in  Springfield,  111.,  on  professional  business. 
We  met  in  the  studio  of  my  friend  Mr.  Thomas  Jones, 
the  sculptor,  who  was  at  that  time  modeling  Mr.  Lincoln's 
bust.  The  circumstances  were  favorable  to  a  conversa- 
tion on  literary  subjects,  and  I  was  charmed  with  the 
earnestness  and  originality  exhibited  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
remarks  and  criticisms.  His  clear  insight  into  character- 
ization was  apparent  in  the  expression  of  his  conception 
of  the  personalities  of  Falstaff  and  old  Weller,  who 
seemed  to  be  especial  favorites  with  him.  He  regarded 
old  Weller  as  a  sort  of  stage-coach  embodiment  or  type 
of  the  Fat  Knight,  the  latter  being  a  tavern  reflection,  as 
it  were,  of  the  velvet-and-brocade  or  court  side  of  wit  and 
humor,  and  the  other  the  familiar  or  road-side  phase  or 
expression  of  it ;  but  both  suggestive  of  "  the  cap-and- 
bells"  and  furnishing  the  materials  for  wholesome  merri- 
ment. Speaking  of  Dickens,  he  said  that  his  works  of 
fiction  were  so  near  the  reality  that  the  author  seemed  to 
him  to  have  picked  up  his  materials  from  actual  life  as  he 
elbowed  his  way  through  its  crowded  thoroughfares,  after 
the  manner,  in  a  certain  sense,  of  Shakespeare  himself. 
As  there  was  but  little  of  the  metaphysical  or  speculative 
element  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind,  though  strong  in  practical 
philosophy,  common  sense,  and  clear  moral  intuitions,  it 
was  not  difficult  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  pref- 
erence he  expressed,  on  this  occasion,  for  the  speech  oi 
King  Claudius  :  "  Oh  !  my  offense  is  rank  and  smells  to 


348  JAMES    E.    MURDOCH. 

heaven,"  over  Hamlet's  philosophical  "  To  be  or  not  tc 
be."  He  expressed  a  wonder  that  actors  should  have 
laid  so  much  stress  on  the  thought  contained  in  the  latter 
soliloquy,  and  passed  with  such  comparative  indifference 
over  the  soul-searching  expressions  of  the  king,  uttered 
under  the  stings  of  self-accusation.  "  The  former,"  said 
Mr.  Lincoln,  "  is  merely  a  philosophical  reflection  on  the 
question  of  life  and  death,  without  actual  reference  to  a 
future  judgment ;  while  the  latter  is  a  solemn  acknowl- 
edgment of  inevitable  punishment  hereafter,  for  the  in- 
fraction of  divine  law.  Let  any  one  reflect  on  the  moral 
tone  of  the  two  soliloquies,  and  there  can  be  no  mistak- 
ing the  force  and  grandeur  of  the  lesson  taught  by  one, 
and  the  merely  speculative  consideration  in  the  other,  of 
an  alternative  for  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to."  It  was 
very  plain  how  such  a  mind  as  his  could  not  fail  to  be 
forcibly  struck  with  the  truth  and  grandeur  of  the  follow- 
ing lines  : 

"  In  the  corrupted  currents  of  this  world, 
Offense's  gilded  hand  may  shove  by  justice  ; 
And  oft  'tis  seen,  the  wicked  prize  itself 
Buys  out  the  law.     But  'tis  not  so  above  ; 
There  is  no  shuffling  ;  there  the  action  lies 
In  his  true  nature  ;  and  we  ourselves  compelled, 
Even  to  the  teeth  and  forehead  of  our  faults, 
To  give  in  evidence." 

The  conversation  turned  upon  the  political  condition 
of  the  country  (it  was  at  the  troubled  period  just  previous 
to  Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration)  and  he  spoke  upon  the  sub- 
ject plainly  and  without  hesitation.  So  deeply  was  I  im- 
pressed with  his  hope  and  faith  for  the  future  of  the 


JAMES    E.     MURDOCH.  349 

country  and  the  ultimate  triumph  of  right  and  justice  in 
its  affairs,  that  glowed  in  the  fervor  of  his  simple  and  un- 
affected language,  and  beamed  from  his  benevolent 
features,  that  I  lost  sight  of  all  the  previous  impressions 
that  his  reputed  story-telling  proclivities  and  his  broad 
witticisms  had  made  upon  me  ;  I  saw  only  the  man — as  the 
whole  world  learned  to  know  him — in  whom  the  sacred 
principles  of  eternal  justice  and  human  rights  were  to  find 
an  honest  and  unflinching  champion  in  the  bitter  hours 

* 

of  trial  and  affliction. 

I  will  simply  add  a  few  words  in  this  connection 
with  regard  to  the  mirthful  element  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
character.  It  has  too  frequently  been  misunderstood  and 
unjustly  censured.  The  following  anecdote  furnishes  us 
an  instance  of  the  slight  ground  upon  which  rested  many 
of  the  charges  made  against  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  undignified 
conduct  and  heartless  expressions  upon  serious  and 
even  solemn  occasions.  The  incident  was  related  to  me 
by  one  who  stood  at  the  President's  side  at  the  time  of 
its  occurrence.  One  day,  a  detachment  of  troops  was 
marching  along  the  avenue  singing  the  soul-stirring 
strain  of  "  John  Brown."  They  were  walled  in  on  either 
side  by  throngs  of  citizens  and  strangers,  whose  voices 
mingled  in  the  roll  of  the  mighty  war-song.  In  the  midst 
of  this  exciting  scene,  a  man  had  clambered  into  a  small 
tree,  on  the  side-walk,  where  he  clung,  unmindful  of  the 
jeers  of  the  passing  crowd,  called  forth  by  the  strange 
antics  he  was  unconsciously  exhibiting  in  his  efforts  to 
overcome  the  swaying  motion  of  the  slight  stem  which 
bent  beneath  his  weight.  Mr.  Lincoln's  attention  was 
attracted  for  a  moment,  and  he  paused  in  the  serious 


350  JAMES    E.     MURDOCH. 

conversation  in  which  he  was  deeply  interested  and  in  an 
abstracted  manner,  yet  with  a  droll  cast  of  the  eye,  and  a 
nod  of  the  head  in  the  direction  of  the  man,  he  repeated, 
in  his  dry  and  peculiar  utterance,  the  following  old- 
fashioned  couplet : 

"  And  Zaccheous  he,  did  climb  a  tree, 
His  Lord  and  Master,  for  to  see — " 

Amid  the  laughter  of  those  who  had  observed  the  in- 
congruity of  the  scene,  Mr.  Lincoln  resumed  the  serious 
tone  of  his  remarks,  as  if  nothing  unusual  had  happened. 
And  yet,  said  my  informant,  I  have  heard  him  charged,  in 
connection  with  this  incident,  with  a  want  of  proper  feel- 
ing, and  even  with  turning  sacred  subjects  into  ridicule. 
It  was  evident,  said  he,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  employ 
the  quotation  in  a  spirit  of  levity.  It  was  but  an  uncon- 
scious exhibition  of  the  mirthful  tendency — or,  perhaps, 
more  correctly  speaking — necessity  of  the  man's  nature. 
He  seemed,  as  it  were,  to  instinctively  select  the  old-time, 
ballad-like  couplet,  from  among  the  mass  of  quaint  and 
home^spun  verse  with  which  his  memory  was  stored, 
more  from  the  sing-song  tone  of  its  jingling  rhyme, 
which  perhaps  suggested  a  likeness  to  the  swinging  mo- 
tion of  the  man  before  him,  than  from  any  intent  to  ridi- 
cule the  verses  or  its  allusion  to  sacred  history.  It  may 
be  that  such  freaks  of  fancy  were  the  unpremeditated 
make-weights  by  which  an  over-strained  mental  activity 
was  prevented  from  taxing  the  brain  too  constantly. 

He  who  can,  for  a  moment,  believe  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
gave  utterance  to  such  an  expression  in  a  spirit  of  levity, 
or  could  utter  a  heartless  jest,  in  the  midst  of  a  scene 


JAMES    E.    MURDOCH.  351 

calculated  to  arouse  all  the  interest  and  enthusiasm  of  the 
mind,  and  stir  every  deep  and  impassioned  feeling  ot  the 
heart,  by  its  grandly  solemn  surroundings,  and  inevitably 
terrible  consequences,  does  not  understand  the  character 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Those  soldiers  and  their  imper- 
iled lives  ;  the  destinies  of  the  cause  they  were  throng- 
ing to  the  front  to  defend ;  the  fortunes  of  the  families 
they  left  behind  ;  the  bloodshed,  misery  and  suffering  in 
store  for  the  nation  ;  all  this  was  crowding  upon  his  brain 
and  throbbing  in  his  heart,  with  as  much  intensified 
sympathy  and  soul-harrowing  foreboding  as  ever  wrung 
the  heart  of  wife  or  mother,  when  called  upon  to  sur- 
render a  loved  son  or  a  husband  to  the  cause  of  free- 
dom. 

The  following  incident  is  but  one  of  many  instances 
of  his  personal  sufferings  in  the  general  cause.  Having 
called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  on  one  occasion  during  the  war, 
by  special  appointment,  at  9  o'clock  in  the  morning,  I  was 
shown  into  a  private  room.  When  the  President  appeared 
I  was  surprised  to  find  him  in  a  state  of  intensified  grief 
and  nervous  excitement,  the  very  embodiment  of  woe,  the 
alternate  fever  and  cold  of  his  hand,  and  his  whole  physi- 
cal being,  indicating  an  overstrained  condition,  attendant 
upon  mental  and  physical  agitation  and  suffering.  After 
a  few  passing  remarks  the  cause  of  his  condition  was  ex- 
plained, when  I  learned  from  his  lips,  for  the  first  time, 
the  news  of  our  defeat  at  Chancellorville.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  kindly  and  grateful  expression  of  his  face  when 
I  stated  the  fact  that,  not  being  aware  of  the  disaster 
when  I  came,  I  felt  the  propriety  of  deferring  the  occa- 


352  JAMES    E.     MURDOCH, 

sion  of  our  interview  to  some  more  fitting  time.  Receiv- 
ing an  earnest  pressure  of  the  hand,  and  a  fervent  "  God 
bless  you,"  I  left  the  presence  of  one  whom  I  felt  to  be 
indeed  bowed  down  under  the  burden  of  a  nation's 
affliction.  And  yet,  strange  as  it  may  appear  to  those  of 
a  different  temperament,  Mr.  Lincoln  could,  as  he  cer- 
tainly did  on  many  an  occasion,  by  force  of  will,  subdue 
the  heart-throb,  crush  back  the  rising  tear,  and  turn  his 
thoughts  in  other  channels,  molding  his  features  to  ex- 
pression of  indifference  or  mirth.  This  same  "  levity," 
as  some  white-haired  sinners  of  his  day  called  it,  was 
often  the  "  nice  fence,"  with  which  he  foiled  the  more 
serious  thrusts  made  by  his  opponents,  and  as  such  served 
his  purpose,  perhaps  better  than  other  means  might  have 
done. 

Those  who  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  and  loved  the  man  had 
cause  to  look  through  and  over  such  peculiarities,  content 
with  an  appreciation  of  the  more  sterling  qualities  which 
generously  and  thoroughly  pervaded  his  nature.  What 
was  said  of  Thomas  Fuller,  the  facetious,  though  devout 
old  preacher,  who  lived  in  the  troublous  times  of  Charles 
the  First,  may  be  as  truly  said  of  Mr.  Lincoln  :  "  He 
was  endowed  with  that  happy  buoyancy  of  spirit  which, 
next  to  religion  itself,  is  the  most  precious  possession  of 
man."  Untiring  humor  seemed  the  ruling  passion  of  his 
soul ;  quaintly  and  facetiously  he  thought,  wrote  and 
spoke,  preferring  ever  a  jocose  expression  even  in  his 
gravest  moments. 

With  a  heart  open  to  all  innocent  pleasure  and 
purged  from  the  leaven  of  malice  and  uncharitableness, 


JAMES    E.    MURDOCH. 


353 


It  was  as  natural  that  he  should  be  as  full  of  mirth  as 
it  is  for  the  grasshopper  to  chirp,  or  bees  to  hum,  or 
birds  to  warble  in  the  spring  breeze  and  the  bright  sun- 
shine. 


CINCINNATI,  1882. 

23 


354  SPEECH    fO    AN    OHIO    JtEGIMENT. 


SPEECH  TO  THE  148™  OHIO  REGIMENT. 

IT  is  vain  and  foolish  to  arraign  this  man  or  that  for 
the  part  he  has  taken  or  has  not  taken,  and  to  hold  the 
Government  responsible  for  his  acts.  In  no  administra- 
tion can  there  be  perfect  equality  of  action  and  uniform 
satisfaction  rendered  by  all. 

But  this  Government  must  be  preserved  in  spite  of  the 
acts  of  any  man  or  set  of  men.  It  is  worthy  your  every 
effort.  Nowhere  in  the  world  is  presented  a  Govern- 
ment of  so  much  liberty  and  equality.  To  the  humblest 
and  poorest  amongst  us  are  held  out  the  highest  privi- 
leges and  positions.  The  present  moment  finds  me  at 
the  White  House,  yet  there  is  as  good  a  chance  for  your 
children  as  there  was  for  my  father's.  Again  I  admonish 
you  not  to  be  turned  from  your  stern  purpose  of  defend- 
ing our  beloved  country  and  its  free  institutions  by  any 
arguments  urged  by  ambitious  and  designing  men,  but 
stand  fast  to  the  Union  and  the  old  flag. 


CHARLES    FOSTER.— HAMILTON    FISH.         355 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN'S  name  ranks  with  the  pur- 
/~\  est  of  men,  the  wisest  of  statesmen,  the  most 
sincere  and  devoted  patriot,  the  loveliest  character  of 
American  statesmen. 


COLUMBUS,  1880. 


J 


"  f  USTUM  ac  tenacem  propositi  virum 
Non  civium  ardor  prava  jubentium 
Non  vultus  instantis  tyranni, 
Mente  quatit  solida." 

HORACE. 

"  With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  to  all,  with 
firmness  in  the  right." 

LINCOLN. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


356  REMARKS    AT    THE     WHITE    HOUSE. 


REMARKS   TO    A   SERENADING   PARTY   AT 
THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 

I  AM  notified  that  this  is  a  compliment  paid  to  me  by 
the  loyal  Marylanders  resident  in  this  District.  I  infer 
that  the  adoption  of  the  new  Constitution  for  the  State 
furnishes  the  occasion,  and  that,  in  your  view,  the  extir- 
pation of  slavery  constitutes  the  chief  merit  of  the  new 
Constitution. ' 

Most  heartily  do  I  congratulate  you  and  Maryland,  and 
the  nation,  and  the  world  upon  the  event.  I  regret  that 
it  did  not  occur  two  years  sooner ;  which,  I  am  sure, 
would  have  saved  to  the  nation  more  money  than  would 
have  met  all  the  private  loss  incident  to  the  measure. 
But  it  has  come  at  last,  and  I  sincerely  hope  its  friends 
may  fully  realize  all  their  anticipations  of  good  from  it, 
and  that  its  opponents  may,  by  its  effects,  be  agreeably 
and  profitably  disappointed.  A  word  upon  another  sub- 
ject. Something  said  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  in  his 
recent  speech  at  Auburn,  has  been  construed  by  some  into 
a  threat  that,  if  I  shall  be  beaten  at  the  election,  I  will, 
between  then  and  the  end  of  my  constitutional  term,  do 
what  I  may  be  able  to  ruin  the  Government.  Others 
regard  the  fact  that  the  Chicago  Convention  adjourned 
not  sine  die,  but  to  meet  again,  if  called  to  do  so  by  a 
particular  individual,  as  the  intimation  of  a  purpose  that 
if  their  nominee  shall  be  elected  he  will  at  once  seize  the 
control  of  the  Government.  I  hope  the  good  people  will 
permit  themselves  to  suffer  no  uneasiness  on  this  point. 


REMARKS    AT     THE     WHITE    HOUSE.          357 

I  am  struggling  to  maintain  the  Government,  not  to 
overthrow  it;  I  am  struggling  especially  to  prevent  others 
from  overthrowing  it.  I  therefore  say  that,  if  I  shall 
live,  I  shall  remain  President  until  the  fourth  of  next 
March,  and  that  whoever  shall  be  constitutionally  elected 
therefor,  in  November,  shall  be  duly  installed  as  Presi- 
dent on  the  fourth  of  March,  and  that,  in  the  interval,  I 
shall  do  my  utmost  that  whoever  is  to  hold  the  helm  for 
the  next  voyage  shall  start  with  the  best  possible  chance 
to  save  the  ship.  This  is  due  the  people  both  on 
principle  and  under  the  Constitution.  Their  will,  con- 
stitutionally expressed,  is  the  ultimate  law  for  all.  If 
they  should  deliberately  resolve  to  have  immediate  peace, 
even  at  the  loss  of  their  country  and  their  liberties,  I 
have  not  the  power  or  the  right  to  resist  them.  It  is 
their  own  business,  and  they  must  do  as  they  please  with 
their  own  ;  I  believe,  however,  they  are  still  resolved  to 
preserve  their  country  and  their  liberty  ;  and,  in  this 
office  or  out,  I  am  resolved  to  stand  by  them.  I  may 
add,  that  in  this  purpose  to  save  the  country  and  its 
liberties  no  class  of  people  seem  so  nearly  unanimous  as 
the  soldiers  in  the  field  and  seamen  afloat.  Do  they  not 
have  the  hardest  of  it  ?  Who  should  quail  while  they  do 
not  ?  God  bless  the  soldiers  and  seamen,  with  all  their 
brave  commanders ! 

OCTOBER  19,  1864. 


358  OBSERVANCE    OF     THE    SABBATH. 


OBSERVANCE  OF  THE  SABBATH. 

THE  President,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army 
and  Navy,  desires  and  enjoins  the  orderly  observance  of 
the  Sabbath  by  the  officers  and  men  in  the  military  and 
naval  service.  The  importance  to  man  and  beast  of  the 
prescribed  weekly  rest,  the  sacred  rights  of  Christian 
soldiers  and  sailors,  a  becoming  deference  to  the  best 
sentiment  of  Christian  people,  and  a  due  regard  for  the 
Divine  Will,  demand  that  Sunday  labor  in  the  army  and 
navy  be  reduced  to  the  measure  of  strict  necessity.  The 
discipline  and  character  of  the  national  forces  should  not 
suffer,  nor  the  cause  they  defend  be  imperiled,  by  the 
profanation  of  the  day  or  name  of  the  Most  High.  "  At 
the  time  of  public  distress,"  adopting  the  words  of 
Washington  in  1776,  "men  may  find  enough  to  do  in  the 
service  of  their  God  and  their  country  without  abandon- 
ing themselves  to  vice  and  immorality."  The  first 
general  order  issued  by  the  Father  of  his  Country  after 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  indicates  the  spirit  in 
which  our  institutions  were  founded  and  should  ever  be 
defended :  "  The  General  hopes  and  trusts  that  every 
officer  and  man  will  endeavor  to  live  and  act  as  becomes  a 
Christian  soldier  defending  the  dearest  rights  and  liberties 
of  his  country '." 

///?        / 

^yWrft^iJM^  c 

NOVEMBER  16,  1864. 


HENRY    S.    FRIEZE.— CYRUS     W.    FIELD.       359 


~"*HE  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln  will  not  grow  dim 
JL  with  age,  like  many  names  brilliant  in  their  own 
day,  yet  fading  with  the  lapse  of  time.  But  that  name 
will  shine  with  ever-increasing  luster,  as  the  results  of 
his  public  life  and  services  shall  be  mftre  clearly  mani- 
fested in  the  increasing  greatness  of  his  country,  which, 
without  his  wise  leadership,  aided  by  faithful  counselors, 
would  have  been  dissolved  into  clusters  of  insignificant 
states,  forever  at  war  and  forever  weak. 


1880. 


LINCOLN — the    statesman,   the    emancipator,    the 
martyr,  whose  services  to  his  country  will  be  re- 
membered with  those  of  Washington. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


360  LETTER     TO    MRS.     BIXBY. 


LETTER  TO  MRS.  BIXBY  OF  BOSTON. 

I  HAVE  been  shown  on  the  file  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment a  statement  of  the  Adjutant-General  of  Massa- 
chusetts, that  you  are  the  mother  of  five  sons  who  have 
died  gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle.  I  feel  how  weak 
and  fruitless  must  be  any  word  of  mine  which  should 
attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of  a  loss  so  over 
whelming  ;  but  I  cannot  refrain  from  tendering  to  you 
the  consolation  that  may  be  found  in  the  thanks  of  the 
republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that  our  Heavenly 
Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavements, 
and  leave  only  the  cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and 
lost,  and  the  solemn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have 
laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 


NOVEMBER  21,  1864. 


W.     O.     BRADLEY.  361 


NO  man  has  so  happily  blended  in  his  character  child- 
like simplicity  with  true  greatness  and  nobility, 
and  combined  so  great  a  degree  of  tenderness  with  lofty 
and  unflinching  courage,  as  the  lamented  Lincoln.  The 
energy  and  perseverance  that  enabled  him  to  overcome 
the  poverty  and  obscurity  which  enshrouded  his  youth 
eminently  qualified  him  to  encounter  and  surmount  the 
colossal  difficulties  that  environed  his  administration. 
His  strong  common  sense,  undaunted  patriotism,  and 
wise  statesmanship  have  left  an  impress  on  our  institu- 
tions which  will  never  be  effaced  so  long  as  this  is  free- 
dom's home ;  and  their  influence  shall  not  be  felt  here 
alone,  but  throughout  the  civilized  world,  for  centuries 
to  come. 

He  has  taken  and  will  hold  rank  in  history  with  the 
purest  and  most  illustrious  of  mankind.  Admiring  coun- 
trymen have  erected  a  noble  shaft  to  mark  his  last  rest- 
ing-place, while  in  their  heart  of  hearts  they  have  builded 
a  mausoleum  that  will  successfully  defy  the  devouring 
tooth  of  time ;  but  surpassing  these  is  the  monument 
erected  by  his  philanthropic  statesmanship,  of  manacles 
torn  from  the  limbs  of  four  million  slaves. 


LANCASTER,  1882. 


362        REMARKS    FROM     TO    A    DELEGATION. 


REMARKS  TO  A  DELEGATION  FROM  OHIO. 

I  AM  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  this  compliment. 
I  have  just  been  saying,  and  as  I  have  just  said  it,  I  will 
repeat  it :  The  hardest  of  all  speeches  which  I  have  to 
answer  is  a  serenade.  I  never  know  what  to  say  on  such 
occasions.  I  suppose  that  you  have  done  me  this  kind- 
ness in  connection  with  the  action  of  the  Baltimore  Con- 
vention, which  has  recently  taken  place,  and  with  which, 
of  course,  I  am  very  well  satisfied.  What  we  want  still 
more  than  Baltimore  Conventions  or  Presidential  Elec- 
tions is  success  under  General  Grant.  I  propose  that  you 
constantly  bear  in  mind  that  the  support  you  owe  to  the 
brave  officers  and  soldiers  in  the  field  is  of  the  very  first 
importance,  and  we  should,  therefore,  bend  all  our  energies 
to  that  point.  Now,  without  detaining  you  any  longer, 
I  propose  that  you  help  me  to  close  up  what  I  am  now 
saying  with  three  rousing  cheers  for  General  Grant  and 
the  officers  and  soldiers  under  his  command. 


F.    E.     SPINNER.  363 


FROM  our  official  and  social  relations,  for  over  four 
years,  I  had  abundant  opportunity  to  know  Mr. 
Lincoln  well.  I  have  been  a  student  of  human  nature 
and  character  all  my  life,  and  of  all  the  men  that  have 
ever  challenged  my  attention,  I  have  never  found  Mr. 
Lincoln's  equal  ;  possessing  the  simplicity  of  a  child,  and 
the  tenderness  of  a  woman,  he  combined,  in  his  make-up, 
all  the  sterner  qualities  of  a  perfect  man.  A  close 
observer  of  men,  measures  and  events,  and  with  a  dis- 
criminating mind  that  led  to  a  correct  judgment,  was 
added  a  conscientiousness  of  the  right  and  a  moral 
courage  to  do  it,  that  enabled  him  to  execute  his  honest 
convictions  of  all  the  political  and  social  duties  that  were 
required  of  him  as  a  man  and  a  magistrate. 


JACKSONVILLE,  1881. 


364  FOURTH    ANNUAL    MESSAGE. 


FOURTH    ANNUAL  MESSAGE 

TO   CONGRESS,  DECEMBER  6TH,   1864. 

THE  most  remarkable  feature  in  the  military  opera- 
tions of  the  year  is  General  Sherman's  attempted  march 
of  three  hundred  miles  directly  through  the  insurgent 
region.  It  tends  to  show  a  great  increase  of  our  relative 
strength  that  our  General-in-Chief  should  feel  able  to 
confront  and  hold  in  check  every  active  force  of  the  enemy, 
and  yet  to  detach  a  well-appointed  large  army  to  -move 
on  such  an  expedition.  The  result  not  yet  being  known, 
conjecture  in  regard  to  it  is  not  here  indulged. 

Important  movements  have  also  occurred  during  the 
year  to  the  effect  of  molding  society  for  durability  in 
the  Union.  Although  short  of  complete  success,  it  is 
much  in  the  right  direction  that  twelve  thousand  citizens 
in  each  of  the  States  of  Arkansas  and  Louisiana  have 
organized  loyal  State  governments,  with  free  constitu- 
tions, and  are  earnestly  struggling  to  maintain  and  ad- 
minister them.  The  movements  in  the  same  direction — 
more  extensive,  though  less  definite — in  Missouri, 
Kentucky,  and  Tennessee  should  not  be  overlooked. 
But  Maryland  presents  the  example  of  complete  success. 
Maryland  is  secure  to  Liberty  and  Union  for  all  the 
future.  The  genius  of  rebellion  will  no  more  claim 
Maryland.  Like  another  foul  spirit,  being  driven  out,  it 
may  seek  to  tear  her,  but  it  will  woo  her  no  more. 

In  presenting  the  abandonment  of  armed  resistance  to 


FOURTH    ANNUAL    MESSAGE.  365 

the  national  authority,  on  the  part  of  the  insurgents,  as 
the  only  indispensable  condition  to  ending  the  war  on  the 
part  of  the  Government,  I  retract  nothing  heretofore  said 
as  to  slavery.  I  repeat  the  declaration  made  a  year  ago, 
that  "  while  I  remain  in  my  present  position  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  retract  or  modify  the  emancipation  proc- 
lamation, nor  shall  I  return  to  slavery  any  person  who 
is  free  by  the  terms  of  that  proclamation,  or  by  any  of 
the  acts  of  Congress."  If  the  people  should,  by  what- 
ever mode  or  means,  make  it  an  executive  duty  to  re- 
enslave  such  persons,  another,  and  not  I,  must  be  their 
instrument  to  perform  it. 

In  stating  a  single  condition  of  peace,  I  mean  simply 
to  say  that  the  war  will  cease  on  the  part  of  the  Govern- 
ment whenever  it  shall  have  ceased  on  the  part  of  those 
who  began  it 


366       REPLY     TO    AN    ILLINOIS    CLERGYMAN. 


REPLY  TO  AN  ILLINOIS  CLERGYMAN. 

"  WHEN  I  left  Springfield  I  asked  the  people  to  pray 
for  me.  •  I  was  not  a  Christian.  When  I  buried  my  son, 
the  severest  trial  of  my  life,  I  was  not  a  Christian.  But 
when  I  went  to  Gettysburg,  and  saw  the  graves  of 
thousands  of  our  soldiers,  I  then  and  there  consecrated 
myself  to  Christ.  Yes,  I  do  love  Jesus." 


IHFANTRY  GROUP  OP  STATUARY.    NATIONAL  LINCOLN 
MONUMENT. 

Representing  a  body  of  infantry  soldiers  on  the  march.  They  are  fl:e<l 
upon  from  eome  covert  place,  and  the  color-bearer  killed.  The  captain 
raises  the  colors  with  one  band,  and  with  the  other  points  to  the  enemy 
and  orders  a  bayonet  charge,  which  the  private  01  his  right  is  in  the  act  of 
executing.  The  drummer-boy  becomes  excited,  loses  his  cap,  throw?* 
away  hia  haversack,  puts  one  drumstick  in  his  belt,  draws  a  revolver  and 
••nga^'cs  in  the  conflict.  The  exploded  shell  indicates  that  they  are  on 
ground  that  has  been  fought  ovir  before. 


W.     T.     SHERMAN.  367 


[EXTRACT.] 

I  KNOW,  when  I  left  him,  that  I  was  more  than  ever 
impressed  by  his  kindly  nature,  his  deep  and  earnest 
sympathy  with  the  afflictions  of  the  whole  people,  result- 
ing from  the  war,  and  by  the  march  of  hostile  armies 
through  the  South  ;  and  that  his  earnest  desire  seemed  to 
be  to  end  the  war  speedily,  without  more  bloodshed  or 
devastation,  and  to  restore  all  the  men  of  both  sections 
to  their  homes.  In  the  language  of  his  second  inaugural 
address  he  seemed  to  have  "  charity  for  all,  malice  toward 
none,"  and,  above  all,  an  absolute  faith  in  the  courage, 
manliness,  and  integrity  of  the  armies  in  the  field.  When 
at  rest  or  listening,  his  legs  and  arms  seemed  to  hang 
almost  lifeless,  and  his  face  was  care-worn  and  haggard ; 
but  the  moment  he  began  to  talk  his  face  lightened  up,  his 
tall  form,  as  it  were,  unfolded,  and  he  was  the  very  im- 
personation of  good-humor  and  fellowship.  The  last 
words  I  recall  as  addressed  to  me  were  that  he  would 
feel  better  when  I  was  back  at  Goldsboro'.  We  parted 
at  the  gang-way  of  the  River  Queen  about  noon  of 
March  28th,  and  I  never  saw  him  again.  Of  all  the  men 
I  ever  met,  he  seemed  to  possess  more  of  the  elements  of 
greatness,  combined  with  goodness,  than  any  other. 


WASHINGTON,  1880. 


368 


INSTRUCTIONS. 


INSTRUCTIONS 

GIVEN    BY    MR.  LINCOLN    TO    WM.  H.  SEWARD,  AT   THE    MEET- 
ING  OF    MESSRS.    STEVENS,  HUNTER   AND   CAMP- 
BELL,   AT    FORTRESS    MONROE,  VA. 

FIRST,  the  restoration  of  the  national  authority 
throughout  all  the  States ;  second,  no  receding  by  the 
Executive  of  the  United  States,  on  the  slavery  question, 
from  the  position  assumed  thereon  in  the  late  annual 
message  to  Congress  and  in  the  preceding  documents ; 
no  cessation  of  hostilities  short  of  the  end  of  the  war, 
and  the  disbanding  of  all  the  forces  hostile  to  the  Govern- 
ment. 

JANUARY  31,  1865. 


GLENNI     W.     SCOFIELD.  369 


A  PRIVATE  soldier  from  my  congressional  district 
having  been  convicted  of  knocking  down  his  cap- 
tain, was  sentenced  to  two  years'  labor  on  the  Dry  Tortu- 
gas.  With  some  of  his  neighbors  I  called  upon  President 
Lincoln  to  solicit  a  pardon.  He  appeared  completely 
worn  out,  and  complained  of  weariness  ;  said  he  was  un- 
able to  look  after  details,  and  we  must  go  to  Stanton.  I 
told  him  we  had  been  there,  but  he  declined  to  interfere. 
"  Then,  said  the  President,  "  attend  to  it  yourselves  at 
the  Capitol."  I  inquired  what  Congress  could  do  in  the 
matter,  and  quick  as  thought  he  said  :  "  Pass  a  law  that 
a  private  shall  have  a  right  to  knock  down  his  captain." 
But  after  the  wit  came  the  pardon. 


WARREN,  1880. 

24 


37  ~  SECOND     INAUGURAL    ADDRESS. 


SECOND  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS, 

DELIVERED    MARCH    3,    1865. 

"  FELLOW  COUNTRYMEN  :  At  this  second  appearing 
to  take  the  oath  of  the  presidential  office,  there  is  less 
occasion  for  an  extended  address  than  there  was  at  the 
first.  Then  a  statement  somewhat  in  detail  of  a  course 
to  be  pursued  seemed  fitting  and  proper.  Now,  at  the 
expiration  of  four  years,  during  which  public  declarations 
have  been  constantly  called  forth  on  every  point  and 
phase  of  the  great  contest  which  still  absorbs  the  atten- 
tion and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation,  little  that  is 
new  could  be  presented.  The  progress  of  our  arms, 
upon  which  all  else  chiefly  depends,  is  as  well  known  to 
the  public  as  to  myself,  and  it  is,  I  trust,  reasonably 
satisfactory  and  encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope  for 
the  future,  no  prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

"  On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this,  four  years 
ago,  all  thoughts  were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending 
civil  war.  All  dreaded  it ;  all  sought  to  avert  it.  While 
the  inaugural  address  was  being  delivered  from  this  place, 
devoted  altogether  to  saving  the  Union  without  war, 
insurgent  agents  were  in  the  city  seeking  to  destroy  it 
without  war — seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  divide 
its  effects  by  negotiation.  Both  parties  deprecated  war  ; 
but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather  than  let  the 
nation  survive,  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather 
than  let  it  perish.  And  the  war  came. 


SECOND    INAUGURAL     ADDRESS.  371 

"  Both  could  not  be  answered — those  of  neither  have 
been  answered  fully.  The  Almighty  has  his  own  pur- 
poses. Woe  unto  the  world  because  of  offenses !  for  it 
must  needs  be  that  offenses  come  ;  but  woe  to  that  man 
by  whom  the  offense  cometh. 

"  If  we  shall  suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one 
of  those  offenses  which,  in  the  providence  of  God,  must 
needs  come,  but  which,  having  continued  through  his 
appointed  time,  he  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  he 
gives  to  North  and  South  this  terrible  war,  as  the  woe 
due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall  we  discern 
therein  any  departure  from  those  Divine  attributes  which 
the  believers  in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  him  ? 
Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  may  soon  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills 
that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bonds- 
man's two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall 
be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  by  the  lash 
shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was 
said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said : 
'  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous 
altogether.' 

"  With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with 
firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let 
us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in ;  to  bind  up  the 
nation's  wounds ;  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne 
the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  for  his  orphan ;  to  do 
all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting 
peace  among  ourselves,  and  with  all  nations." 


?;  REMARKS    ON     THE    FALL     OF    RICHMOND. 


REMARKS  UPON  THE  FALL  OF 
RICHMOND. 

WE  meet  this  evening  not  in  sorrow,  but  in  gladness 
of  heart.  The  evacuation  of  Petersburg  and  Richmond, 
and  the  surrender  of  the  principal  insurgent  army,  give 
hope  of  a  righteous  and  speedy  peace,  whose  joyous 
expression  cannot  be  restrained.  In  the  midst  of  this, 
however,  He  from  whom  all  blessings  flow  must  not  be 
forgotten.  Nor  must  those  whose  harder  part  give  us 
the  cause  of  rejoicing  be  overlooked ;  their  honors  must 
not  be  parceled  out  with  others.  I  myself  was  near  the 
front,  and  had  the  high  pleasure  of  transmitting  much 
of  the  good  news  to  you  ;  but  no  part  of  the  honor,  for 
plan  or  execution,  is  mine.  To  General  Grant,  his  skill- 
ful officers  and  brave  men,  all  belongs. 


LAWRENCE    BARRETT— NEAL    DOW.  373 


"T3ESIDES  ....  he  hath  borne  his  faculties  so  meek, 
-U     Hath  been  so  clean  in  his  great  office 
That  his  virtues  will  plead  like  angels,  trumpet-tongued, 
Against  the  deep  damnation  of  his  taking  off. 
And  Pity,  like  a  naked,  new-born  babe,  striding  the  blast, 
Or  Heaven's  cherubim,  horsed  on  the  sightless  couriers  oi 

the  air, 

Shall  blow  the  horrid  deed  in  every  eye, 
That  tears  shall  drown  the  wind." 


CoHASSET,   1880. 


I  BE  LI  EVE  in  Divine  inspiration  for  good,  and  that 
God  sometimes  intervenes  in  the  affairs  of  man. 
Abraham  Lincoln,  in  my  view,  was  charged  with  a  Divine 
mission,  which  he  executed  wisely  and  well,  and  is  justly 
entitled  to  the  reverence,  gratitude  and  love  of  all  loyal 
citizens  of  our  great  republic. 


PORTLAND,  1882. 


374  A     VERBAL    MESSAGE. 


A  VERBAL    MESSAGE    GIVEN    BY    MR.    LIN- 
COLN  TO  HON.  SCHUYLER  COLFAX, 
FOR  THE  MINERS  OF   THE 
FAR  WEST, 

APRIL  14,  1865. 

MR.  COLFAX  : — I  want  you  to  take  a  message  from 
me  to  the  miners  whom  you  visit.  I  have  very  large 
ideas  of  the  mineral  wealth  of  our  nation.  I  believe  it 
practically  inexhaustible.  It  abounds  all  over  the 
western  country,  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Pa- 
cific, and  its  development  has  scarcely  commenced. 
During  the  war,  when  we  were  adding  a  couple  of  millions 
of  dollars  every  day  to  our  national  debt,  I  did  not  care 
about  encouraging  the  increase  in  the  volume  of  our 
precious  metals.  We  had  the  country  to  save  first. 
But,  now  that  the  rebellion  is  overthrown,  and  we  know 
pretty  nearly  the  amount  of  our  national  debt,  the  more 
gold  and  silver  we  mine  makes  the  payment  of  that  debt 
so  much  the  easier.  Now,  I  am  going  to  encourage  that 
in  every  possible  way.  We  shall  have  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  disbanded  soldiers,  and  many  have  feared 
that  their  return  home  in  such  great  numbers  might 
paralyze  industry  by  furnishing  suddenly  a  greater  supply 
of  labor  than  there  will  be  a  demand  for.  I  am  going  to 
try  and  attract  them  to  the  hidden  wealth  of  our  mountain 
ranges,  where  there  is  room  enough  for  all.  Immigration, 
which  even  the  war  has  not  stopped,  will  land  upon  our 


A     VERBAL    MESSAGE.  375 

shores  hundreds  of  thousands  more  per  year  from  over- 
crowded Europe.  I  intend  to  point  them  to  the  gold 
and  silver  that  waits  for  them  in  the  West.  Tell  the 
miners  from  me  that  I  shall  promote  their  interests  to  the 
utmost  of  my  ability,  because  their  prosperity  is  the  pros- 
perity of  the  nation ;  and  we  shall  prove,  in  a  very  few 
years,  that  we  are,  indeed,  the  treasury  of  the  world. 


Mr.  Lincoln  went  to  the  opera,  saying: — "  People  may 
think  strange  of  it,  but  I  must  have  some  relief  from  this 
terrible  anxiety,  or  it  will  kill  me." 

APRIL  I4TH,  1865. 


[Fac-similf  if  TJieatrical  Programme  of  the  night  of  President  Lincoln's  Assassination.] 

FORD'S    THEATRE,. 

TENTH  STREET,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

FRIDAY  EVENING,  APRIL  14th,   1 86S. 

THIS   EVENING 

the  performance  will  be  honored  by  the  presence  of 
PRESIDENT  LINCOLN. 

Benefit  and  last  night  of  MISS 

X_!  A.  TJ  FL  A.      IK1  IE  IE  3XT  IE , 

The  distinguished  Manageress,  Authoress  and  Actress,  supported  by 
Mr.  JOHN  DYOTT  and  Mr.  HARRY  HAWK. 

Tom    Taylor's    celebrated    Eccentric    Comedy   as    originally  produced  in 

America  by  Miss  Keene,  and  performed  by  her  upwards  of 

ONE  THOUSAND  NIGHTS 

ENTITLED 

OUR  AMERICAN  COUSIN. 

FLORENCE  TRENCHARD Miss  LAURA  KEENE, 

Abel  Murcott JohnDyott. 

Asa  Trencbard   Harry  Hawk. 

Sir  Edward  Trenchard T.  C.  Gourlay. 

Lord  Dundreary E.  A.  Emerson. 

Mr.  Coyle,  Attorney. .., J.  Mathews. 

Lieut.  Vernon,  R.  N W.  J.  Ferguson. 

Captain  De  Boots C.  Byrnes. 

Binncy G.  G.  Spenr. 

Buddicomb.  a  valet. , J.  H.  Evans. 

John  Whicker,  a  gardner J.  L.  De  Bonay 

Rasper,  a  groom 

Bailiffs G.  A.  Parkhurst  and  L  Johnson. 

Mary  Trenchard Miss  J.  Gourlay. 

Mrs.  Mountchessington Mrs.  H.  Muzzey. 

Augusta Miss  H.  Truman. 

Gcorgiana. Miss  M.  Hart. 

Sharpe Mrs.  J.  H.  Evans. 

Skillet Miss  M.  Gourlay. 

THE  PRICES  OF  ADMISSION : 

Orchestra $1  00      I      Dress  Circle  and  Parquette,    $    75 

Family  Circle 25     |      Private  Boxes, ...  $6  00  and  f  10  00 

J.  R.  FORD,  Business  Manager. 

H.  POLKINHOBH  &  SON.  Printers.  Washington,  D.  C. 


MARTIN    L.     HOOGE—  CHARLES    A.     DANA.     377 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  is  the  purest  man  of  the 
JT\  people  known  to  history.  In  his  public  career  he 
was  as  incorruptible  as  Aristides  the  Just,  as  sagacious  as 
William  the  Silent,  as  brave  as  Cromwell,  and  as  unselfish 
as  Codrus  the  Athenian,  who  fell  in  the  forefront  of  the 
battle,  that  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  life  Jie  might  be  the 
preserver  of  his  country. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN,  1880. 


HE  was  a  patriot  and  a  wise  man.  The  fundamental 
ideas  of  the  American  republican  system  con- 
trolled his  mind  and  dictated  his  action.  His  wisdom 
carried  the  United  States  safely  through  the  war  of 
secession  and  abolished  slavery.  His  death  was  a 
calamity  for  the  country,  but  it  left  his  fame  without  a 
fault  or  criticism. 


(yT^UXj^ 


NEW  YORK,  1881. 


378  ALEXANDER    II .     RICE, 


PERHAPS  no  quality  in  the  character  of  the  late 
President  Lincoln  was  more  conspicuous  or  more 
engaging  than  his  broad  and  deep  humanity — the  interest 
he  felt  in  every  human  being — and  the  unostentatious 
and  beautiful  manifestations  of  it  which  were  visible  to  all 
who  had  intercourse  with  him. 

No  person  of  much  sentiment  or  sensibility  ever 
looked  into  his  wonderful  eyes  without  feeling  the  spell 
which  they  exerted,  or  without  knowing  that  they 
were  the  windows  through  which  a  great  soul  was 
looking  upon  the  problems  of  life  and  the  actors  in  them, 
with  a  calm,  philosophic  and  loving  sympathy.  This  was 
one  of  the  secrets  of  the  magical  power  of  Lincoln's 
presence. 

He  was  mirthful,  talkative  and  sad  by  turns  ;  fond  of 
superficial  anecdotes,  and  invented  and  used  them  at  con- 
venience or  pleasure,  to  furnish  amusement,  to  parry  a 
bore,  or  to  point  an  argument.  He  was  familiar  and 
companionable  in  ordinary  intercourse,  always  neglectful 
of  assuming  any  unreal  dignity,  and  apparently  uncon- 
scious of  the  greatness  of  his  office,  except  only  the  great- 
ness of  its  responsibilities.  To  a  casual  observer,  he 
was  homely  in  person  and  awkward  in  manners ;  and  yet 
he  was  a  man  with  whom  no  one  could  presume  to  trifle, 
and  before  whom,  even  in  his  playful  moods,  every  one 
was  impressed  by  his  greatness  of  spirit. 

We  have  had  no  man  in  our  history  like  Lincoln  in  his 
leading  characteristics,  and  they  cannot  be  imitated.  He 


ALEXANDER    //.     RICE.  379 

had  not  much  of  the  serene  and  contemplative  gravity 
which  belongs  to  our  traditional  Washington  ;  none  of 
the  imperious  personality  of  Jackson  ;  none  of  the  win- 
some and  chivalric  dash  of  Henry  Clay  ;  none  of  the 
ponderous  eloquence  of  Webster,  and  but  little  of  that 
polite  learning  which-  gives  high  ornament  to  literature 
and  statesmanship  ;  but  he  had  a  subtle  and  comprehen- 
sive intellect,  wonderful  power  of  intuition,  and  a  trans- 
parency of  soul  through  which  the  truth  shone  into  affairs 
and  gave  them  an  interpretation  almost  divine. 

Nobody  ever  feared  that  Lincoln  would  do  a  mean  or 
wrong  thing  ;  no  one  dreaded  a  foolish  thing  from  him  ; 
and  the  country  came,  finally,  to  expect  from  him  the 
wisest  and  best  that  could  be  done  in  every  case  and  on 
every  subject. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  man  born  and  jeared  under  the 
civilization  of  the  older  States  could  ever  have  become  a 
characteristic  Lincoln.  To  produce  him  the  rough  sim- 
plicity of  frontier  life  was  necessary ;  its  needs,  its  priva- 
tions, its  efforts,  its  self-reliance — that  whole  sphere  of 
experience  in  which  the  daily  life,  though  simple,  is  yet 
full  of  problems  such  as  can  be,  and  must  be,  solved  ;  and 
which  are  but  the  epitome  of  those  larger  problems 
which,  later  on,  demand  the  strongest  and  most  versatile 
powers  in  their  solution.  In  that  simple  life  the  facts 
and  uses  of  knowledge,  rather  than  its  verbiage,  are  ac- 
quired and  appreciated ;  all  the  faculties  are  quickened 
and  toughened  a  more  quiet  contact  with  nature  is  en- 
joyed ;  and  out  of  that  contact  often  comes  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  mysterious  Power  greater  than  nature, 
between  which  and  men  a  communion  more  or  less 


380  ALEXANDER    H.     RICE. 

palpable  is  possible,  a  communion  which  gives  to  human 
actions  the  elements  of  dignity  and  power  that  extend  far 
above  and  beyond  the  realm  and  the  period  of  earthly 
existence.  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  profound  spirituality. 
All  this,  and  much  that  might  be  added,  was  essential  to 
the  development  of  a  man  like  Abraham  Lincoln. 

But  I  intended  to  speak  especially  and  almost  wholly 
of  the  humanity  of  Lincoln — of  his  love  for  the  whole 
race  of  men,  and  of  his  sympathy  with  individuals  in  their 
trials  and  distresses.  Passing  by  those  great  public  acts, 
his  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  and  the  like,  which  have 
become  historic,  and  which  have  modified  the  laws  and 
institutions  and  even  the  civilization  of  the  country,  let 
me  give  a  few  personal  incidents  which  have  never  been 
published. 

While  officially  re3ident  in  Washington,  during  the 
late  war,  I  once  had  occasion  to  call  upon  President 
Lincoln  with  the  late  Senator  Henry  Wilson,  upon  an  er- 
rand of  a  public  nature  in  which  we  were  mutually  inter- 
ested. In  the  recognized  order  of  precedence  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  as  I  then  was,  could  not 
times  of  pressure  for  audience  with  the  President  gain 
admittance  so  long  as  there  were  Cabinet  Ministers, 
members  of  the  Diplomatic  Corps,  Senators  or  Justices 
of  the  Supreme  Court  desiring  audience  with  him,  and 
all  civilians  must  wait  their  opportunity  until  after 
members  of  Congress  and  officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy, 
and  of  the  Civil  Service  and  others,  had  had  their  turns 
respectively.  Having  a  joint  errand  with  Senator  Wilson, 
I  could  avail  of  his  privilege  of  earlier  admission  ;  but  we 
were  obliged  to  wait  some  time  in  the  anteroom  before 


ALEXANDER    H.     RICE.  381 

we  could  be  received,  and  when  at  length  the  door  was 
opened  to  us,  a  small  lad,  perhaps  ten  or  twelve  years  old, 
who  had  been  waiting  for  admission  several  days  without 
success,  slipped  in  between  us,  and  approached  the  Pres- 
ident in  advance.  -The  latter  gave  the  Senator  and 
myself  a  cordial  but  brief  salutation,  and  turning  im- 
mediately to  the  lad,  said:  "And  who  is  the  little  boy?" 
During  their  conference  the  Senator  and  myself  were  ap- 
parently forgotten.  The  boy  soon  told  his  story,  which 
was  in  substance  that  he  had  come  to  Washington  seek- 
ing employment  as  a  page  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, and  he  wished  the  President  to  give  him  such  an 
appointment.  To  this  the  President  replied  that  such 
appointments  were  not  at  his  disposal,  and  that  applica- 
tion must  be  made  to  the  door-keeper  of  the  House  at 
the  Capitol.  "  But,  sir,"  said  the  lad,  still  undaunted, 
"  I  am  a  good  boy,  and  have  a  letter  from  my  mother, 
and  one  from  the  supervisors  of  my  town,  and  one  from 
my  Sunday-school  teacher,  and  they  all  told  me  that  I 
could  earn  enough  in  one  session  of  Congress  to  keep  my 
motfyer  and  the  rest  of  us  comfortable  all  the  remainder 
of  the  year."  The  President  took  the  lad's  papers,  and 
ran  his  eye  over  them  with  that  penetrating  and  absorb- 
ing look  so  familiar  to  all  who  knew  him,  and  then  took 
his  pen  and  wrote  upon  the  back  of  one  of  them  :  "  If 
Captain  Goodnow  can  give  a  place  to  this  good  little 
boy,  I  shall  be  gratified,"  and  signed  it  "A.  Lincoln." 

The  boy's  face  became  radiant  with  hope,  and  he 
walked  out  of  the  room  with  a  step  as  light  as  though 
all  the  angels  were  whispering  their  congratulations. 

Only  after  the  lad  had  gone  did  the    President  seem 


382  ALEXANDER    H.     RICE. 

to  realize  that  a  Senator  and  another  person  had  been 
some  time  waiting  to  see  him. 

Think  for  a  moment  of  the  President  of  a  great 
nation,  and  that  nation  engaged  in  one  of  the  most 
terrible  wars  ever  waged  among  men,  himself  worn  down 
with  anxiety  and  labor,  subjected  to  the  alternations  of 
success  and  defeat,  racked  by  complaints  of  the  envious, 
the  disloyal  and  the  unreasonable,  pressed  to  the  decision 
of  grave  questions  of  public  policy,  and  encumbered  by  the 
numberless  and  nameless  incidents  of  civil  and  martial 
responsibility,  yet  able  so  far  to  forget  them  all  as  to 
give  himself  up  for  the  time  being  to  the  errand  of  a  little 
boy  who  had  braved  an  interview  uninvited,  and  of  whom 
he  knew  nothing,  but  that  he  had  a  story  to  tell  of  his 
widowed  mother,  and  of  his  ambition  to  serve  her. 

On  another  occasion  I  had  an  interview  with  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  on  behalf  of  a  captain  in  one  of  our 
Massachusetts  regiments,  a  brave  man,  who,  after  most 
valiant  service,  had  been  captured  by  the  rebels,  and  was 
then  held  a  prisoner  at  Richmond.  I  asked  that  he 
might  be  exchanged.  The  President  replied  with  piuch 
kindness  that  such  cases  were  so  numerous  that  he  could 
not  deal  with  them  individually,  but  must  classify  and 
decide  them  in  considerable  numbers.  This  was  obvi- 
ously so  true  as  scarcely  to  admit  of  reply  ;  yet  I  ventured 
to  say  that  if  he  could  but  hear  this  case,  I  thought  it  so 
remarkable  that  he  would  be  glad  to  make  it  an  excep- 
tion. "  Well,  state  it,"  he  said,  and  I  did  so  ;  and  im- 
mediately on  my  closing,  the  President  said,  "  I  wish  you 
would  go  over  to  the  War  Department  and  tell  Gen. 
that  story,  just  as  you  have  told  it  to  me,  and  say 


ALEXANDER    H.     RICE.  3^3 

from  me  that  if  it  be  possible  for  him  to  effect  the  ex- 
change of  Captain without  compromising  the  cases 

of  other  prisoners  of  his  rank,  I  wish  him  to  do  so." 
"  But,"  I  said,  "  for  a  technical  misdemeanor  Captain 
—  has,  since  his  capture,  been  deprived  of  his  com- 
mission and  reduced  to  the  ranks,  and  probably  the 
rebels  will  not  exchange  him  for  a  private  soldier." 

"Well,"    said    the  President,   "if  Gen.  raises  that 

point,  say  to  him  that  if  he  can  arrange  the  exchange 
part,  I  can  take  care  of  the  rank  part,  and  I  will  do  so." 
The  captain  was  in  Washington  in  about  ten  days  after- 
wards. 

Again,  a  boy  from  one  of  the  country  towns  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, who  had  entered  a  store  in  Boston,  and  be- 
come dazzled  by  the  apparent  universal  distribution  of 
wealth,  without  any  definite  idea  of  how  it  was  acquired, 
fell  into  the  fault  of  robbing  his  employer's  letters  as  he 
took  them  to  and  from  the  post-office,  and,  having  been 
convicted  of  the  offense,  was  serving  out  his  sentence  in 
jail.  The  father  of  this  boy  came  to  Washington  to  ob- 
tain a  pardon  for  his  son,  and  I  accompanied  him  to  the 
White  House  and  introduced  him.  A  petition  signed 
by  a  large  number  of  respectable  citizens  was  presented. 
The  President  put  on  his  spectacles  and  stretched  himself 
at  length  upon  his  arm-chair  while  he  deliberately  read  the 
document,  and  then  he  turned  to  me  and  asked  if  I  met 
a  man  going  down  the  stairs  as  I  came  up.  I  said  that  I 
did.  "Yes,"  said  the  President;  "he  was  the  last  person 
in  this  room  before  you  came,  and  his  errand  was  to  get 
a  man  pardoned  out  of  the  penitentiary  ;  and  now  you 
have  come  to  get  a  boy  out  of  jail !"  Then,  with  one  cif 


384  ALEXANDER    H.     RICE. 

those  bursts  of  humor  which  were  both  contagious  and 
irresistible,  he  said  :  "  I'll  tell  you  what  it  is,  we  must 
abolish  those  courts,  or  they  will  be  the  death  of  us.  I 
thought  it  bad  enough  that  they  put  so  many  men  in  the 
penitentiaries  for  me  to  get  out  ;  but  if  they  have  now 
begun  on  the  boys  and  the  jails,  and  have  roped  you  into 
the  delivery,  let's  after  them  !  And  they  deserve  the 
worst  fate,"  he  soon  continued,  "because,  according  to 
the  evidence  that  comes  to  me,  they  pick  out  the  very 
best  men  and  send  them  to  the  penitentiary  ;  and  this 
present  petition  shows  they  are  playing  the  same  game 
on  the  good  boys,  and  sending  them  all  to  jail.  The 
man  you  met  on  the  stairs  affirmed  that  his  friend  in  the 
penitentiary  is  a  most  exemplary  citizen,  and  Massa- 
chusetts must  be  a  happy  State  if  her  boys  out  of  jail 
are  as  virtuous  as  this  one  appears  to  be  who  is  in. 
Yes ;  down  with  the  courts  and  deliverance  to  their 
victims,  and  then  we  can  have  some  peace !" 

During  all  this  time  the  President  was  in  a  most 
merry  mood.  Then  his  face  assumed  a  sad  and  thought- 
ful expression,  and  he  proceeded  to  say  that  he  could 
quite  understand  how  a  boy  from  simple  country  life 
might  be  overcome  by  the  sight  of  universal  abundance 
in  a  large  city,  and  by  a  full  supply  of  money  in  the 
pockets  of  almost  everybody,  and  be  led  to  commit  even 
such  an  offense  as  this  one  had  done,  and  yet  not  be 
justly  put  into  the  class  of  hopeless  criminals  ;  and  if  he 
could  be  satisfied  that  this  was  a  case  of  that  kind,  and 
that  the  boy  would  be  placed  under  proper  influences, 
and  probably  saved  from  a  bad  career,  he  would  be  glad 
to  extend  the  clemency  asked  for.  The  father  explained 


ALEXANDER    H.     RICE.  385 

his  purpose  in  that  respect,  the  Congressmen  from  the 
State  in  which  he  belonged  united  in  the  petition,  and  the 
boy  was  pardoned. 

Such  examples  as  these,  varying  in  character,  but 
all  springing  from  the  same  tender  and  noble  qualities 
of  heart,  might  be  multiplied  almost  indefinitely ;  but 
they  all  found  culmination  in  that  grandest  utterance  of 
modern  eloquence,  at  the  consecration  of  the  battle-field 
of  Gettysburg,  when,  the  promptings  of  his  soul  having 
summoned  his  intellect  to  the  point  of  supreme  exalta- 
tion, he  spoke  to  all  mankind  those  words  of  patriotism, 
admonition  and  pathos  which  will  continue  to  sound 
through  the  ages  as  long  as  the  flowers  shall  bloom  or 
the  waters  flow. 


BOSTON,  1882. 

25 


386  A.   A.   E.    TAYLOR— H.   Z.   DA  WES. 


r  I  "HE  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln  will  ever  stand  in 
X  history  and  in  the  hearts  of  his  own  countrymen 
beside  the  name  of  Washington.  His  genius,  wisdom 
and  goodness  saved  the  Union  ;  his  great  heart  liberated 
the  slaves.  Christian  people  believe  he  was  raised  up 
by  the  divine  Hand  for  the  deliverance  of  the  nation,  and 
guided  in  its  accomplishment.  In  my  humble  judgment 
his  name  is  the  greatest  in  American  history. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  WOOSTER,  1880. 


WASHINGTON  was  the  Father,  and  Lincoln  the 
Savior,  of  his  Country. 


PlTTSFIELD,   l88o. 


PETER     COOPER. 


387 


I  HAVE  always  had  the  greatest  admiration  for  the 
amiable,  simple  and  honest  traits  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
character.  I  believe  that,  under  the  providence  of  God, 
he  was,  next  to  Washington,  the  greatest  instrument  for 
the  preservation  of  the  Union  and  the  integrity  of  the 
country  ;  and  this  was  brought  about  chiefly  through  his 
strict  and  faithful  adherence  to  the  Constitution  of  his 
country. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


388 


/.    W.   ANDREWS— P.   A.    CHADBOURNE. 


IN  the  revolutionary  struggle  George  Washington  was 
raised  up  to  be  our  great  leader  in  the  achievement 
of  national  independence  ;  and  in  the  rebellion  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  placed  in  the  Presidential  chair  to  preserve 
the  Union  from  dissolution  and  destruction.  Each  of 
these  great  men  seems  to  have  been  chosen  of  God  for 
his  special  work,  and  the  names  of  Washington  and 
Lincoln  will  forever  be  united  in  the  memory  and  love 
of  the  American  people. 


MARIETTA  COLLEGE,   1880. 


A  BRAH AM  LINCOLN  was  the  man  for  the  times ; 
/~\  and  in  the  great  work  he  accomplished  for  his 
country,  and  in  the  cause  of  human  rights,  he  has  not 
been  surpassed  by  any  of  the  greatest  and  best  men  of 
our  land. 


^^MZS 

v* 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE. 


M.    F.     BIGNEY.  389 


IN  the  broadest  and  best  sense  of  the  term,  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  America's   great  "  Commoner."     Pos- 
sibly he  builded  wiser  than  he  knew,  for  while 

"  He  carved  his  name  on  time  as  on  a  rock, 
And  stood  thereon  as  on  a  monument," 

he  was  apparently  unconscious  as  an  infant-giant  of  his 
own  high  possibilities.  A  patriot  without  pretense,  and 
a  statesman  by  intuition,  he  could  still  descend  to  the 
level  of  the  humblest,  ever  ready  with  a  jest  to  point  a 
moral,  and  with  a  story  to  confound  a  sophist. 

At  the  time  when  bloody  treason  flourished  and  he 
fell,  the  Southern  people,  unjustly  accused  of  sympathy 
with  his  assassin,  were  just  beginning  to  appreciate  his 
sterling  qualities  and  the  wisdom  of  his  acts.  His  death 
was  to  the  North  a  bereavement  and  a  grief;  to  the 
South  it  was  a  dire  calamity  which  hindered  the  consum- 
mation of  that  "more  perfect  union"  for  which  all  good 
people  prayed  ;  and  to-day  the  men  and  women  of  the 
South,  without  distinction  of  race  or  color,  cherish  the 
memory  of  the  Martyr-President  as  that  of  a  Deliverer. 

He,  whom  the  people  honored;  he,  the  wise, 

Who  fought  for  honor's  prize; 
He,  whom  the  armies  reverenced — the  good, 

Who  every  lure  withstood; 
He,  whom  the  ransomed  worshiped;  HE,  the  blest, 

Has  gone  to  his  great  rest! 


390  J/.     F.     BIGNEY. 

When  through,  war's  storm-cloud  the  fair  silver  light 

Of  peace  appeared  most  bright, 
Red-handed  murder  raised  against  his  life 

The  pistol  and  the  knife, 
And  HE,  the  great,  the  good,  the  nation's  Chief 

Fell,  leaving  all  in  grief. 


NEW  ORLEANS,  1881. 


JAMES    MARVIN— C.     M.     MEAD.  391 


A   BRAHAM    LINCOLN.      AN    AMERICAN,    I 

/~V  find  all  the  characteristics  of  the  ideal  American 
embodied  in  this  great,  good  MAN.  Coming  ages  alone 
can  properly  estimate  the  value  of  his  services  to  this 
country  and  to  human  freedom  in  all  lands. 


LAWRENCE,  1880. 


NO  other  statesman  in  the  world's  history  has  ever 
won  from  so  many  men  their  personal  affection, 
thorough   confidence    and    enthusiastic    admiration,    as 
Abraham  Lincoln. 


ANDOVER  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,  1880. 


392 


O.     O.     HO  WARD. 


I  MET  Mr.  Lincoln  several  times  during  the  war,  and 
always  entertained  for  him  feelings  of  confidence 
and  esteem,  and  finally  of  great  personal  affection.  The 
last  time  I  saw  him  was  in  the  fall  after  Gettysburg,  at 
the  White  House.  It  was  just  prior  to  my  leaving  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  for  the  West  with  a  part  of  the 
nth  Corps.  He  gave  me  his  map,  which,  being 
"  mounted,"  was  in  his  judgment  better  than  mine  for 
field  service.  This  was  after  we  had  conversed  for  some 
time  upon  the  military  situation  in  the  vicinity  of  Knox- 
ville  and  of  Chattanooga,  and  just  as  I  was  about  leaving 
his  room.  I  used  the  map  thereafter,  and  have  it  still. 


WEST  POINT,  1882. 


WILLIAM    M'NEELY.  393 


MY  first  acquaintance  with  Abraham  Lincoln  com- 
menced on  his  arrival  at  New  Salem,  Sangamon 
County,  Illinois,  on  a  flat-boat,  about  the  year  1830,  in 
company  with  one  Denton  Offeit,  who  had  a  store. 
Lincoln  clerked  for  him  some  time,  after  which  he  went 
to  work  at  anything  that  could  be  found  to  do,  such  as 
cutting  and  splitting  rails,  etc.  He  had  worked  but  a 
short  time  when  he  was  appointed  deputy-sheriff,  and 
after  a  time  became  county-surveyor  under  one  Calhoun, 
of  Springfield,  which  business  he  followed  for  some  time. 
Lincoln  was  poor ;  but  it  was  soon  discovered  that  he 
possessed  a  very  high  order  of  intellect,  and  therefore 
he  was  helped  and  encouraged,  and  soon  had  a  host  of 
friends  in  New  Salem.  About  this  time  he  went  into  the 
family  grocery  business,  but  left  the  business  principally 
in  charge  of  his  partner,  while  he  devoted  his  time  to 
other  business  and  at  the  same  time  studying  to  make 
something  of  himself.  When  at  work  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  carrying  a  book  about  with  him,  and  when 
stopping  to  rest  would  devote  the  time  tc  reading,  and 
what  he  read  he  remembered.  I  recollect  of  his  saying 
that  "A  fool  could  learn  about  as  well  as  a  wise  man, 
but  after  he  had  learned,  it  did  not  do  him  any  good." 

Lincoln  said  he  did  not  believe  in  total  depravity, 
and,  although  it  was  not  popular  to  believe  it,  it  was 
easier  to  do  right  than  wrong ;  that  the  first  thought 
was  :  what  was  right  ?  and  the  second  —what  was  wrong  ? 
Therefore  it  was  easier  to  do  right  than  wrong,  and 


394  WILLIAM    M'NEELY 

easiei  to  take  care  of,  as  it  would  take  care  of  itself.  It 
took  an  effort  to  do  wrong,  and  a  still  greater  effort  to 
take  care  of  it ;  but  do  right,  and  it  would  take  care  of 
itself.  Then  you  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  go  ahead  and 
do  right  and  nothing  to  trouble  you. 

He  was  a  very  close  observer.  Speaking  of  a  prayer 
he  once  heard  a  very  pious  man  make,  in  which  he 
prayed  very  earnestly  for  the  "widowers,"  he  said  he 
"did  not  know  but  what  it  might  be  an  improvement  on 
prayer ;  that  he  did  not  know  but  the  widows  had  about 
as  hard  a  time  as  the  widowers,  but  believed  that  God 
did  all  things  right." 

Lincoln,  during  his  residence  in  New  Salem,  was  a 
candidate  for  the  Legislature.  There  were  nine  who 
wanted  to  be  elected,  and  he  said :  "  They  let  him  off 
with  700  votes — a  little  behind^  the  ninth  man."  After 
this  some  of  the  talented,  big  men  induced  him  to  move 
to  Springfield.  The  next  time  he  was  a  candidate  he 
was  elected  to  the  Legislature,  where  he  distinguished 
himself  by  taking  a  prominent  part  in  favor  of  internal 
improvements  and  other  important  measures.  In  politico 
he  was  a  Whig,  and  so  was  I  ;  and  when  the  Whig  part]' 
had  worn  itself  out  in  honorable  age  he  and  I  joined  the 
Republican  party.  After  leaving  New  Salem  for  Spring- 
field, Mr.  Lincoln  and  myself  petitioned  for  a  new  county. 
He  looked  out  the  lines  of  the  proposed  new  county, 
and  the  result  was  the  county  of  Menard  was  set  off. 
At  this  time  he  was  an  able  lawyer,  and  stood  very  high 
in  the  profession.  He  was  always  kind  to  his  friends, 
and  attended  to  some  law  business  for  me,  frequently 
gave  me  advice ;  and  I  do  not  recollect  of  his  ever  charg- 


WILLIAM    M'NEELY.  395 

ing  me  anything  for  it.  He  was  not  only  kind  to  his 
friends,  but  possessed  a  large  share  of  humanity  and  was 
kind  to  all. 

I  was  acquainted  with  him  a  long  time,  and  I  never 
knew  him  to  do  a  wrong  act.  While  he  had  a  host  of 
friends,  I  would  not  say  that  he  had  no  enemies.  In  this 
connection  I  will  quote  in  substance  what  he  said  at  the 
funeral  of  one  Doling  Green,  of  Menard  county,  an  old 
citizen  and  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  arrangements 
for  the  funeral  were  that  Dr.  McNeal,  of  Springfield, 
was  to  preach  the  funeral  sermon  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
to  speak  of  the  character  of  the  deceased.  Dr.  McNeal, 
in  his  introductory  remarks,  said  that  in  relation  to  the 
character  of  the  deceased  he  would  say  nothing,  as  that 
was  left  to  better  and  abler  hands.  At  the  conclusion 
of  the  sermon  Mr.  Lincoln  arose  and  said  that  Mr.  Green, 
the  deceased,  had  a  great  many  friends,  and  had  always 
been  a  true  friend  to  him,  but  he  would  not  say  that  he, 
Green,  had  no  enemies.  There  was,  however,  one  con- 
solation in  that,  for  he  read  in  Sacred  Writ,  a  woe  was 
pronounced  on  that  man  that  all  men  spoke  well  of,  and 
in  that  his  deceased  friend  got  rid  of  that  "woe;"  and 
so  I  would  say  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  will  get  rid  of  that 
woe.  As  is  well  known,  Mr.  Lincoln  volunteered  and 
went  into  the  Black  Hawk  War,  as  captain  of  a  company 
of  Illinois  troops,  and,  as  I  recollect,  did  well  and  was 
liked  by  all.  The  "boys"  would  get  discouraged,  but 
Lincoln  would  cheer  them  up  by  cracking  his  jokes,  tell- 
ing amusing  stories  and  appearing  always  cheerful. 

It  may  not  be  generally  known,  but  Mr.  Lincoln 
surveyed  and  laid  out  the  town  of  Petersburg,  which  is 


396  WILLIAM    M'NEELY. 

now  a  city.  He  was  also  elected  to  Congress,  the  well- 
known  Peter  Cartwright,  a  Methodist  preacher,  being  his 
opponent  in  the  canvass.  The  records  of  the  country 
show  what  he  did  in  opposition  to  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill,  when  he  took  issue  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  agreed 
upon  a  joint  discussion,  and  made  a  canvass  of  the  State. 
At  one  of  their  public  discussions — I  believe  it  was 
at  Havana — after  the  discussion  had  been  somewhat 
prolonged  and  it  *was  thought  that  Mr.  Douglas  had 
exhausted  his  argument,  Mr.  Lincoln  came  forward  and 
told  a  story.  He  said :  There  were  large  poplar  trees 
in  Kentucky,  and  he  knew  a  man  who  had  a  very  large 
one,  and  nothing  near  to  pile  upon  it,  so  as  to  burn  it, 
and  it  was  so  large  that  it  could  not  be  hauled  away  ; 
and  he  then  asked  if  any  one  could  tell  what  they  did 
about  it  ?  No  one  answering,  he  told  them  :  "  They 
went  around  it."  "Just  so,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "Mr. 
Douglas  will  have  to  do  with  his  Kansas-Nebraska  bill, 
just  go  around  it"  The  well-known  remark  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, that  the  Government  could  not  exist  half  free  and 
half  slave,  and  that  a  house  divided  against  itself  could 
not  stand.  My  opinion  is,  there  never  was  a  better  man 
than  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  I  came  to  this  coiclusion 
from  a  long  acquaintance  with  him. 

/^k^/fo%^&v 

"  ' 

PETERSBURG,  1882. 


LOUISA    PARSONS    HOPKINS.  397 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

OUR  country's  Titan!  on  her  mighty  rivers, 
Her  trackless  plains,  in  virgin  forests  growing, 
That  strength  was  nurtured  which  a  land  delivers, 
And  reaps  the  harvest  of  a  century's  sowing. 

Harvest  of  blood  and  death:  Oh!  hapless  nation, 
Into  that  gulf  her  best  and  bravest  throwing  ! 

Rome  gave  her  Curtius  for  an  expiation — 

Our  sealed  abyss  was  thy  great  heart's  outflowing. 


NEW  BEDFORD,  1882. 


398  SAM'L    ADAMS    DRAKE— FERNANDO     WOOD. 


A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN  is  one  of  the  most  com- 
x  ~\  manding  figures  in  history.  That  his  elevation  to 
the  Presidency  was  at  first  viewed  with  aversion  by  a 
large  and  influential  body  of  his  countrymen  there  can  be 
no  question.  But  events  vindicated  the  wisdom  of  the 
choice.  The  world  has  confirmed  and  history  has  re- 
corded it.  When  he  died  it  was  as  a  conqueror.  Like 
Wolfe,  at  Quebec,  Abraham  Lincoln  expired  in  the  arms 
of  victory. 


MELKOSE,  1882. 


FOR  the  fame  of  Lincoln   it  is  only  necessary  to  say 
that   he  was  contemporary   with   the   permanent 
establishment  of  human   freedom  in  the   United  States, 
and  identified  with  its  final  accomplishment. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


DA  VI D    D.     PORTER. 


399 


IT  would  be  a  difficult  matter  for  any  one  to  give 
a  proper  idea  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  services 
during  the  years  he  was  engaged  in  the  most  stupendous 
labor  that  has  perhaps  fallen  to  the  lot  of  a  statesman. 
He  can  be  better  judged  by  his  works  than  by  anything 
I  could  say.  I  was  intimately  associated  with  Mr. 
Lincoln  during  a  period  of  two  or  three  weeks  when  the 
war  of  the  rebellion  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  my  re- 
membrance of  him  is  of  a  man  whose  mind  was  oppressed 
with  care  and  whose  body  was  almost  broken  down  with 
the  magnitude  of  his  labors  ;  whose  days  and  nights  were 
passed  in  sleepless  anxiety  for  the  preservation  and  wel- 
fare of  the  Union.  I  knew  nothing,  personally,  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  trials  in  the  Cabinet,  where  I  am  sure  he  had 
much  to  contend  with,  or  of  the  dissensions  with  poli- 
ticians who,  amid  the  ruins  of  their  country,  were  work- 
ing for  their  own  aggrandizement.  I  only  knew  the  Pres- 
ident as  an  honest,  faithful  worker  in  his  country's 
cause,  who  did  the  best  he  could  to  bring  the  war  to  a 
speedy  close,  while  at  the  same  time  he  showed  a  deter- 
mined spirit  to  yield  nothing  that  would  militate  against 
the  Republic  of  which  he  was  the  head.  Although 
painted  by  his  enemies  in  the  blackest  colors,  President 
Lincoln  had  a  heart  capable  of  the  greatest  sympathy 
and  the  keenest  emotions  for  the  carnage  and  destruction 
he  saw  going  on  in  every  direction,  and  if  necessary  he 
would  have  sacrificed  his  life  to  avert  these  horrors.  If 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  never  done  more  than  the  one  act  of 
abolishing  slavery  and  wiping  out  that  blot  on  our  civil- 
ization, it  would  have  been  enough  to  immortalize  him  ; 


4oo  DAVID    D.     PORTER. 

but  if  his  biography  is  publicly  written  when  prejudices 
are  laid  aside,  so  that  the  man  can  be  seen  in  his  great- 
ness and  integrity,  no  nobler  character  will  adorn  the 
pages  of  American  history.  The  last  days  of  President 
Lincoln's  life,  except  the  two  final  ones,  were  passed  in 
my  company  and  mostly  on  board  my  flag-ship,  and  I 
take  great  satisfaction  in  the  knowledge  that  he  con- 
sidered them  the  happiest  days  of  his  administration. 
He  came  to  City  Point,  unaccompanied  by  any  of  his 
Cabinet,  to  witness  what  he  knew  was  about  to  take  place 
in  the  downfall  of  the  Confederate  stronghold.  He  was 
anxious  for  peace  and  was  willing  to  extend  the  most 
liberal  terms  to  those  who  had  made  war  upon  us.  I 
kept  from  the  President  all  those  who  would  have 
annoyed  him  or  disturbed  the  tranquillity  he  enjoyed  on 
ship-board,  and  I  think  he  was  grateful  for  my  -onsidera- 
tion.  It  would  take  a  large  volume  to  contain  a  true 
story  of  Lincoln's  administration.  He  was  the  central 
figure  in  the  Cabinet,  and  without  him  it  would  have  been 
nothing.  He  was  the  opposing  power  against  political 
schemers  who  wished  to  put  this  or  that  general  at  the 
head  of  our  armies,  and  when  left  to  his  own  judgment 
he  always  selected  the  right  man.  Take  him  a' together, 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men 
this  country  has  produced,  and  will  be  revered  in  the 
future  more  than  any  other  President  except  Washing- 
ton. The  two  names  will  go  down  together  to  posterity. 


WASHINGTON. 

i 


NAVY  GROUP  OP  STATUARY.     NATIONAL  LINCOLN  MONUMENT. 

Representing  a  scene  on  the  deck  of  a  ship  of  war.  The  mortar  is  properly  poised,  the  gunner 
as  rolled  up  a  shell  ready  to  be  elevated  into  t lie  mortar,  the  boy,  whose  duty  it  is  to  carry  cartridges 
>  the  piece,  and  who  in  nautical  phrase  is  called  the  powder  monkey,  has  elevated  himself  to  the 
tghcst  position.  The  two  latter  believing  they  are  about  to  enter  upon  an  engagement,  are  peering 
iito  the  distance  with  manifest  indications  of  excitement.  The  Commander,  however,  having  taken 
n  observation  through  his  telescope,  finds  there  is  no  cause  to  apprehend  danger,  and  is  calmly 
leditiiting. 


AUGUST     V.     KAUTZ.  401 


THE    VISIT    OF    PRESIDENT    LINCOLN    TO 

RICHMOND, 

THE  ABANDONED  CONFEDERATE  CAPITAL,  ON  THE  4TH  OF 

APRIL,  1865. 

THE  abandoned  and  burning  city  was  occupied,  the 
day  previous,  by  General  Weitzel's  command,  con- 
sisting of  a  division  of  white  troops  under  General  Devins 
and  a  colored  division  which  I  commanded.  The  Pres- 
ident, accompanied  by  Admiral  Porter,  had  landed  early 
in  the  afternoon  from  the  gun-boat  Malvern,  which  came 
up  from  City  Point,  and  leading  his  little  son  Tad,  the 
three  walked  up  from  the  landing  to  General  Weitzel's 
quarters,  in  the  house  occupied  two  days  before  by  the 
Confederate  President.  By  the  time  he  reached  it,  the 
streets  were  almost  impassable,  being  obstructed  mostly 
by  negroes  struggling  to  get  sight  of  the  man  whom  they 
regarded  as  their  savior.  A  reception  was  held  immedi- 
ately, that  lasted  some  hours,  and  then  a  ride  was  proposed, 
and,  accompanied  by  a  number  of  general  officers,  the 
party,  filling  two  ambulances,  drove  through  the  city  and 
Capitol  grounds  until  sundown.  The  same  evening,  Mr. 
Campbell,  of  the  Confederate  Cabinet,  and  some  other 
prominent  Confederates,  interviewed  Mr.  Lincoln  with 
propositions  for  the  restoration  of  Virginia  to  the  Union. 
The  President  remained  until  the  7th  without  agreeing 
upon  any  plan  that  was  accepted.  This  was  the  last  time 

26 


402  AUGUST     V.     KAUTZ. 

that  I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  ;  one  week  after  he  was  assassinated  ; 
and,  a  few  weeks  later,  I  was  summoned  to  Washington 
and  detailed  a  member  of  the  Commission  that  tried  the 
assassins.  By  this  visit  tor  the  captured  Confederate 
capital,  Mr.  Lincoln  realized,  before  General  Lee  had 
surrendered,  more  completely  than  he  otherwise  could 
have  done,  that  the  Confederacy  had  fallen,  and  that  the 
cause,  of  which  he  was  the  distinguished  representative, 
had  triumphed,  to  accomplish  which,  he  would  have  laid 
down  his  life  at  any  time  during  the  war. 


U.  S.  ARMY. 


SOPHIE    E     EASTMAN.  403 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

FEBRUARY  12,  1809. 

NO  minster  bells'  loud  paean 
Proclaimed  the  moment  when 
He  came  to  earth  to  be  an 

Uncrowned.king  of  men; 
No  purple  to  enfold  him, 

Our  country's  royal  guest ; 
But  loving  arms  to  hold  him. 
Silence  !  God  knoweth  best ! 

APRIL  15,  1865. 

The  way  was  long  and  cheerless, 

But  dawn  succeeded  night; 
That  soul,  so  brave  and  fearless, 

Dwells  evermore  in  light ! 
No  shadows  dim  his  glory, 

Our  hearts  his  praise  resound, 
And  history  tells  his  story, — 

Our  nation's  king  is  crowned  ! 


SOUTH  HADLEY,  1882. 


404  WM.      WILBERFORCE    NEWTON. 


THE  most  conspicuous  victim  of  our  nation's  rise  and 
progress  has  been  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  long 
and  cruel  war  of  the  rebellion  was  over.  The  first  glad 
days  of  peace  had  come.  The  waters  of  the  flood  of 
wrath  were  disappearing,  and  the  long-tossed  ark  of  the 
national  life  had  just  rested  upon  solid  ground.  The  dove 
was  returning  from  the  redeemed  world  with  a  branch  of 
olive,  when  the  hand  of  the  assassin  struck  down  the 
emancipator  of  the  race  of  slaves.  To  those  of  us  who 
remember  vividly  the  war  days,  who  cannot  recall  the 
awful  shock  of  that  event?  The  brave  patriot's  life, 
covered,  as  it  had  been,  with  contumely  and  abuse,  de- 
rided, scorned,  criticised,  condemned,  stood  at  the  last 
far  above  all  his  compeers,  and  we  understood  at  the  last 
why  it  was  that  the  leadership  of  this  elect  nation  had 
been  committed  to  his  patient,  suffering  keeping  through 
the  storm  of  the  civil  war,  and  not  to  his  companions,  a 
Seward,  a  Chase  or  a  Stanton,  since  in  the  light  of  his 
death  we  beheld  the  divine  meaning  of  his  choice,  and 
felt  that,  like  Saul  among  the  elder  brethren  of  his 
father's  house,  the  horn  of  the  prophetic  people,  like 
that  of  Samuel  of  old,  had  anointed  with  holy  oil  that 
man  of  the  people  whom  God  had  unmistakably  called 
and  chosen  to  be  the  leader  through  the  crisis  of  the 
rebellion. 


BOSTON,  1882. 


L.     SCOTT.  405 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  I  regard  as  belonging  to 
JL\  the  same  class  with  the  judges  in  Israel.  He  was 
raised  up  by  Divine  Providence  to  be  the  deliverer  of 
this  nation  in  a  time  of  great  peril.  His  work  done,  God 
permitted  him  to  be  removed  without  conscious  suffer- 
ing, by  the  bullet  of  a  most  cowardly  and  wicked  assassin. 
His  name  will  stand  on  the  roll  of  fame  next  to  that  of 
Washington  as  a  benefactor  of  his  race. 


1880. 


4o6 


W.     STRONG. 


THE  life  and  services  of  President  Lincoln  must  e/er 
be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  beneficent  gifts 
which  an  ever-willing  Providence  has  ever  conferred  upon 
this  much-favored  country.  He  seems  to  have  been 
raised  up  for  the  times  in  which  he  lived — times  as 
critical  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive — and  for  those  times 
he  was  exactly  fitted.  Perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  say  no 
other  man  could  have  done  the  noble  work  which  he  did 
in  saving  the  Union,  but  I  know  of  no  other  that  in  my 
judgment  could  have  done  so  well.  An  ardent  patriot, 
shrewd,  with  large  common  sense,  far-reaching  fore- 
sight, firmness  and  tenacity  of  purpose,  possessing  the 
largest  sympathies,  "with  malice  for  none  and  charity  for 
all,"  I  cannot  hope  ever  to  see  his  like  again. 


WASHINGTON,  1880. 


W.    D.    HO  WELLS— JOHN    GIBBON.  407 


NO  admirer  who  speaks  in  his  praise  must  pause 
to  conceal  a  stain  upon  his  good  name.  No 
true  man  falters  in  his  affection  at  the  remembrance  of 
any  mean  action  or  littleness  in  the  life  of  Lincoln.  The 
purity  of  his  reputation  ennobles  every  incident  of  his 
career  and  gives  significance  to  all  the  events  of  his  past" 


BELMONT,  1880. 


MR.  LINCOLN  will  be  known  in  history,  first,  as 
an  honest  man ;  second,  as  a  statesman  in  the 
truest  and  best  meaning  of  the  word  ;  third,  as  a  human- 
ist with  a  sincere  love  of  his  whole  country,  and  a  heart 
large  enough  to  take  in  the  whole  human  race ;  fourth, 
as  the  great  martyr  to  the  cause  of  Liberty  throughout 
the  world. 


U.  S.  ARMY,  1882. 


4oS 


/.     A.     GARFIELD. 


W 


ITH  profound  reverence  for  the  life  and  character 
of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


MENTOR,  OHIO,  JULY  2,  1880. 


GALUSHA     A.     GROW—W.     W.     GOODWIN.       409 


r  I  "HE  Martyr  President  seals  with  his  blood  the 
JL  emancipation  of  a  race,  and  grasping  four  millions 
of  broken  coffles,  ascends  to  the  bosom  of  his  God,  thus 
consecrating  the  land  of  Washington  as  the  home  of  the 
emigrant  and  the  asylum  of  the  oppressed  of  every  clime, 
and  of  all  races  of  men. 


PHILADELPHIA,  1880. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  the  right  man  in  the 
±\  right  place,  at  the  right  time.  The  whole  country 
owes  him  a  debt  of  endless  gratitude. 


CAMBRIDGE,  1880. 


410 


C.     E.     LIPPINCOTT. 


E^COLN  came  so  aptly  to  the  need  of  his  times,  and 
was  so  exactly  fitted  for  the  burden  of  his  great- 
ness, that  probably  he  impressed  few  of  his  casual  ac- 
quaintances with  his  transcendent  qualities.  Now  that 
he  has  gone  from  the  world,  which  he  did  so  much  to 
make  better,  those  who  have  a  definite  knowledge  of  the 
crisis  in  which  he  was  the  greatest  actor  can  see  and 
wonder  at  his  greatness.  Others  were  divided  upon 
abstract  questions,  which,  by  unkindly  discussion,,  seemed 
to  have  grown  into  causes  of  sectional  hate.  Even  many 
of  the  leaders  of  the  party  which  made  Lincoln  President 
forgot  their  love  of  country  in  their  hatred  of  slavery, 
and  would  have  accepted  disunion  even,  that  they  might 
fight  slavery  more  earnestly.  They  made  the  mistake 
which  history  shows  has  been  made  so  often.  They 
fancied  that  excessive  philanthropy  might  take  the  place 
of  patriotism.  Lincoln  first  and  above  all  loved  his 
country.  Every  other  love,  opinion,  principle  was  in 
utter  subordination  to  his  patriotism.  That  was  his 
strength.  That  made  him  the  representative  and  the 
worthy  leader  of  all  patriots  of  every  sort  of  opinion. 
He  was  the  leader  of  all  the  patriotic  people ;  he  was 
the  leader  of  the  war.  He  was  the  incarnation  of  a 
nation's  love  of  country.  In  his  grave  he  remains  the 
exemplar  and  the  idol  of  patriotism. 


CHANDLERVILLE,  1881. 


GEO.    BANCROFT    GRIFFITH— JOHN     G.     FEE.  411 


THE  grand  legacy  ot  American  freedom,  bequeathed 
to  us  by  the  Father  of  his  Country,  and  which  a 
wicked  rebellion  would  have  squandered,  was  saved,  we 
trust,  for  all  coming  time,  by  that  noble  martyr,  Abraham 
Lincoln. 


C 


EAST  LEMPSTER,  1881. 


A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN  at  all  times  impressed  me 
1~\  as  a  man  of  native  good  sense,  singleness  of 
motive  and  integrity  of  purpose.  His  life  has  been  of 
great  good  to  this  nation,  because  he  "  desired  to  be  on 
the  Lord's  side,"  gave  his  voice  for  the  freedom  of  the 
oppressed  and  his  life  for  the  Union  of  the  States.  No 
better  legacy  can  be  left  to  the  youth  of  our  land  than 
the  example  of  great  men  and  women  —  great  in  goodness 
of  heart  and  character. 


BEREA  COLLEGE,  1882. 


412 


FREDERICK    SMYTH. 


THE  possibility  of  such  a  man  as  Abraham  Lincoln 
is  a  standing  argument  in  favor  of  a  Government 
which  unites  freedom  with  strength,  and  has  strength 
without  tyranny.  Courts  and  kingdoms  might  be 
searched  in  vain  for  a  prince  who,  by  tradition  or  culture, 
had  attained  such  wisdom  in  the  government  of  men  as 
had  the  son  of  the  backwoods.  What  gentleness,  wis- 
dom, patience  !  What  wit !  What  skill  in  argument ! 
What  power  of  persuasion  !  What  sublime  faith  !  These 
were  qualities  which  bound  him  to  the  hearts  of  his 
countrymen  and  m«ude  him  worthy  to  be  a  martyr  to 
liberty. 


MANCHESTER,  1880. 


JANE    GREY    SWISSHELM.  413 


IN  February,  '63,  I  went  to  Washington,  so  much 
prejudiced  against  President  Lincoln  that  I  was 
with  difficulty  persuaded  to  attend  a  reception,  and  would 
only  go  on  condition  that  I  should  not  be  presented.  I 
went  into  his  presence  with  a  feeling  of  scorn  for  the 
man  who  had  tried  to  save  the  Union  and  slavery — the 
man  who  had  rescinded  the  orders  of  Gen.  Fremont  and 
Gen.  Hunter,  emancipating  the  slaves  of  rebels  in  arms 
against  the  Government.  I  had  no  respect  for  the  man 
who  had  emancipated  a  nation  of  slaves,  not  as  an  act 
of  justice,  but  as  a  means  to  an  end ;  and,  was  no  little 
startled  to  find  a  chill  of  awe  pass  over  me  as  my  eyes 
rested  upon  him.  It  was  as  if  I  had  suddenly  passed  a 
turn  in  a  road  and  come  into  full  view  of  the  Matterhorn  ; 
as  if  I  had  stepped  from  a  close  room  into  a  mountain 
breeze. 

I  have  always  been  sensitive  to  the  atmosphere  of 
those  I  met,  but  have  never  found  that  of  any  one 
impress  me  as  did  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  I  know  no 
word  save  "grandeur"  which  expresses  the  quality  of 
that  atmosphere.  I  think  that  to  me  no  familiarity,  no 
circumstance,  could  have  made  him  other  than  grand. 
The  jests,  the  sallies,  with  which  he  amused  small  people 
and  covered  his  own  greatness,  were  the  shrubs  on  the 
mountain  side,  the  flowers  which  shot  up  in  the  crevices 
of  the  rocks !  They  were  no  part  of  the  mountain. 
Grandly  and  alone  he  walked  his  way  through  this  life  ; 
and  the  world  had  no  honors,  no  emoluments,  no 


4i4  JANE    GREY    SWISSHELM. 

reproaches,  no  shames,  no  punishments  which  he  could 
not  have  borne  without  swerving  or  bias. 

Washington  was  to  Lincoln  what  St  Peter's  is  to 
the  Matterhorn.  He  was  a  fine  combination  of  good 
material,  worked  into  form  by  high  art ;  but  art  had 
nothing  to  do  in  making  Lincoln ;  only  God,  and  His 
elements,  could  effect  the  equipoise  or  outline  of  this 
rugged,  thoroughly  balanced  nature. 

I  stood  for  some  time  watching  him  receive  his 
guests  and  getting  back  my  own  breath  and  circulation ; 
not  realizing- the  full  measure  of  the  effect  his  presence, 
had  on  me,  but  fully  impressed  by  a  conviction  of  his 
honesty.  Whatever  he  had  done,  or  left  undone,  was 
the  result  of  conviction.  He  had  done  what  he  believed 
to  be  right,  and  stood  ready  to  bear  every  responsibility 
of  his  acts. 

He  could  never  dodge  or  prevaricate,  and  his  policy 
was  that  of  the  teacher  who  seeks  to  lead  his  pupils  to 
the  highest  plane,  and  by  the  best  means  known  to  him- 
self. His  simplicity  and  self-forgetfulness,  his  total  lack 
of  that  weakness  which  finds  strength  in  rank,  were 
evident  at  a  glance.  To  himself  he  was  no  greater  as 
Commander-in-chief  than  he  would  have  been  as  corporal 
or  private.  His  aims  were  all  his  country's,  his  ambition 
to  render  her  the  best  service  in  his  power ;  and  this  he 
would  have  done  in  any  position,  with  as  much  pride  as 
he  commanded  his  armies. 

His  evident  weariness,  and  the  patience  with  which 
he  stood  shaking  hands,  as  one  might  pump  on  a  sinking 
ship,  made  me  angry  with  the  senseless  custom.  Were 
there  not  enough  demands  on  his  time  and  strength, 


JANE    GREY    SWISSHELM.  415 

without  this  unreasonable  drain  ?  I  hesitated  about  being 
presented,  because  it  would  be  another  hand  for  him  to 
shake,  but  felt  I  could  not  go  away  without  yield  ing  what 
was  counted  a  token  of  respect  and  protesting  against  the 
custom.  So  when  he  took  my  hand  I  said :  "  May  the 
Lord  have  mercy  on  you,  poor  man  ;  for  the  people  have 
none  F 

He  threw  up  his  head  and  laughed  pleasantly,  and 
those  around  him  joined  the  laugh  ;  but  I  went  off  angry, 
indignant,  that  he  should  be  sacrificed  to  a  false  social 
custom — an  insolent  demand  of  thoughtless  people,  and 
vain  people,  who  added  this  burden  to  that  of  an  already 
cruelly  overtaxed  public  servant. 


CHICAGO,  1882. 


4i6 


JNO.     C.    NEW. 


THE  name  and  fame  of  Mr.  Lincoln  will  live  as  long 
as  the  history  of  the  republic  endures,  as  that  of 
a  true  lover  of  his  country  and  of  humanity — as  that  of 
a  man  equal  to  all  the  conditions  of  life,  from  that  of 
the  humble  and  lowly  to  that  of  the  proud  and  exalted 
position  as  President  of  the  grand  republic  and  peer  of 
the  proudest  monarch,  and  in  every  position  the  same 
plain,  honest,  prudent  man — safe  in  council,  wise  in  action 
and  pure  in  purpose. 


INDIANAPOLIS,  1880. 


RICHARD     SMITH.  417 


THE  life  and  services  of  a  public  man  can  only  be 
impartially  estimated  when  he  has  passed  from 
active  duty.  Washington  was  largely  reviled  while  living; 
his  memory  is  now  universally  revered.  In  public  life 
Lincoln  was  a  second  Washington,  and  his  memory 
occupies  a  corresponding  position  in  the  hearts  of  his 
loyal  countrymen.  Side  by  side  their  names  will  go  down 
in  history  to  the  end  of  time,  the  one  as  the  instrument 
that  secured  independence,  and  the  other  as  the  instru- 
ment that  preserved  our  Union  and  gave  freedom  to  four 
million  slaves.  He  was  sacrificed,  but  his  martyrdom 
gave  emphasis  to  the  living  principles  embodied  in  our 
amended  Constitution  ;  as  the  lifting  up  of  Christ  elevated 
the  principles  it  was  his  mission  to  establish.  These  are 
now  almost  universally  acknowledged.  These  are  the 
beacon  lights  which  moderate  despotisms  and  are  the 
hope  of  people  who  seek  liberty  for  the  sake  of  the 
human  race. 


CINCINNATI,  1880. 


4i 8  ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS. 


A  FEW  months  after  the  inauguration  of  President 
Lincoln  I  received  a  letter  from  the  Hon. 
Charles  Sumner,  requesting  me  to  come  to  Washington 
at  my  earliest  convenience.  The  day  after  my  arrival  in 
Washington  I  was  introduced  to  the  President.  Mr. 
Lincoln  received  me  very  cordially,  and  invited  me  to 
dine  with  him.  Assembled  at  the  President's  table  were 
several  prominent  gentlemen,  to  whom  Mr.  Lincoln 
introduced  me  as  "a  red-hot  abolitionist  from  Canada." 
One  of  the  guests,  a  prominent  member  of  Congress, 
from  Indiana,  said,  in  a  slurring  manner :  "  I  wish  the 
negroes  of  the  United  States  would  emigrate  to  Canada, 
as  the  Canadians  are  so  fond  of  their  company."  Mr. 
Lincoln  said  :  "  It  would  be  better  for  the  negroes,  that's 
certain."  "  Yes,"  I  replied  a  little  warmly,  "  it  would  be 
better  for  the  negroes ;  for,  under  our  flag,  the  blackest 
negro  is  entitled  to  and  freely  accorded  every  right  and 
privilege  enjoyed  by  native  Canadians.  We  make  no 
distinction  in  respect  to  the  color  of  a  man's  skin.  It  is 
true,  we  live  under  a  monarchical  form  of  government, 
but  every  man  and  woman,  white,  black,  or  brown,  have 
equal  rights  under  our  laws."  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  a  jocular 
way,  said  to  the  member  of  Congress  :  "  If  you  are  not 
careful,  you  will  bring  on  a  war  with  Canada ;  I  think  we 
have  got  a  big  enough  job  on  hand  now."  The  con- 
versation then  turned  on  the  attitude  of  England  toward 
the  free  States  in  their  contest  with  the  slave-holders. 
One  gentleman  remarked  that  he  was  surprised  to  see  so 


ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS.  410 

many  manifestations  of  unfriendliness  on  the  part  of  the 
English  and  Canadian  people,  and  asked  me  how  I  ac- 
counted for  it.  I  replied:  "  How  can  you  expect  it  other- 
wise, when  there  exists  in  your  Northern  States  so  much 
diversity  of  opinion  as  to  the  justness  of  your  cause?  The 
unfriendly  expressions  of  an  English  statesman,  or  the 
avowed  hostility  of  a  few  English  and  Canadian  papers, 
are  noted  by  you  with  painful  surprise ;  while  the 
treasonable  utterances  and  acts  of  some  of  your  own 
political  leaders  and  people  are  quite  overlooked. 
Besides,  you  cannot  expect  the  sympathy  of  the  Christian 
world  in  your  behalf,  while  you  display  such  an  utter  dis- 
regard for  the  rights  and  liberties  of  your  own  citizens, 
as  I  witnessed  in  this  city  yesterday."  Mr.  Lincoln  asked 
to  what  I  alluded.  I  replied  :  "  A  United  States  marshal 
passed  through  Washington  yesterday,  having  in  his 
charge  a  colored  man,  whom  he  was  taking  back  to 
Virginia  under  your  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  The  man  had 
escaped  from  his  master,  who  is  an  open  rebel,  and  fled 
to  Wilmington,  Delaware,  where  he  was  arrested  and 
taken  back  into  slavery." 

After  dinner  Mr.  Lincoln  led  me  to  a  window,  distant 
from  the  rest  of  the  party,  and  said  :  "  Mr.  Sumner  sent 
for  you  at  my  request ;  we  need  a  confidential  person  in 
Canada  to  look  after  our  interests,  and  keep  us  posted  as 
to  the  schemes  of  the  Confederates  in  Canada.  You  have 
been  strongly  recommended  to  me  for  the  position. 
Your  mission  shall  be  as  confidential  as  you  please  ;  no 
one  here  but  your  friend  Mr.  Sumner  and  myself  shall 
have  any  knowledge  of  your  position.  Your  communica- 
tions may  be  sent  direct  to  me  under  cover  to  Major . 


420  ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS. 

Think  it  over  to-night,  and  if  you  can  accept  the  mission 
come  up  and  see  me  at  nine  o'clock  to-morrow  morning." 
When  I  took  my  leave  of  him,  he  said :  "  I  hope  you  will 
decide  to  serve  us."  The  position  thus  offered  was  one 
not  suited  to  my  tastes,  but,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  appeared  very 
desirous  that  I  should  accept  it,  I  concluded  to  lay  aside 
my  prejudices  and  accept  the  responsibilities  of  the 
mission.  I  was  also  persuaded  to  this  conclusion  by  the 
wishes  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Sumner. 

At  nine  o'clock  next  morning,  I  waited  upon  the 
President,  and  announced  my  decision.  He  grasped  my 
hand  in  a  hearty  manner,  and  said,  "  Thank  you,  thank 
you  ;  I  am  glad  of  it."  I  said,  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  if  the  object 
of  your  Government  is  the  liberation  from  bondage  of 
the  poor  slaves  of  the  South,  I  should  feel  justified  in 
accepting  any  position  where  I  could  best  serve  you  ;  but 
when  I  see  so  much  tenderness  for  that  vile  institution 
and  for  the  interests  of  slave-holders,  I  question  whether 
your  efforts  to  crush  the  rebellion  will  meet  with  the 
favor  of  Heaven."  He  replied  :  "  I  sincerely  wish  that 
all  men  were  free,  and  I  especially  wish  for  the  complete 
abolition  of  slavery  in  this  country  ;  but  my  private  wishes 
and  feelings  must  yield  to  the  duties  of  my  position.  My 
first  duty  is  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the  Union. 
With  that  object  in  view,  I  shall  endeavor  to  save  it, 
either  with  or  without  slavery.  I  have  always  been  an 
anti-slavery  man.  Away  back  in  1839,  when  I  was  a 
member  of  the  Legislature  of  Illinois,  I  presented  a 
resolution  asking  for  the  emancipation  of  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  when,  with  but  few  exceptions,  the 
popular  mind  of  my  State  was  opposed  to  it.  If  the 


ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS.  421 

institution  of  slavery  is  destroyed,  and  the  slaves  set  free, 
as  a  result  of  this  conflict  which  the  slave-holders  have 
forced  upon  us,  I  shall  rejoice  as  heartily  as  you.  In 
the  meantime,  help  us  to  circumvent  the  machinations  of 
the  rebel  agents  in  Canada.  There  is  no  doubt  they  will 
use  your  country  as  a  communicating  link  with  Europe, 
and  also  with  their  friends  in  New  York.  It  is  quite 
possible,  also,  that  they  may  make  Canada  a  base  to  harass 
and  annoy  our  people  along  the  frontier." 

After  a  lengthy  conversation  relative  to  private 
matters  connected  with  my  mission,  I  rose  to  leave,  when 
he  said :  "  I  will  walk  down  to  Willard's  with  you  ;  the 
hotel  is  on  my  way  to  the  Capitol,  where  I  have  an 
engagement  at  noon." 

Before  we  reached  the  hotel,  a  man  came  up  to  the 
President  and  thrust  a  letter  into  his  hand,  at  the  same 
time  applying  for  some  office  in  Wisconsin.  I  saw  that  the 
President  was  offended  at  the  rudeness,  for  he  passed  the 
letter  back  without  looking  at  it,  saying  :  "  No,  sir  !  I  am 
not  going  to  open  shop  here."  This  was  said  in  a  most 
emphatic  manner,  but  accompanied  by  a  comical  gesture 
which  caused  the  rejected  applicant  to  smile.  As  we 
continued  our  walk,  the  President  spoke  of  the  annoy- 
ances incident  to  his  position,  saying:  "These  office- 
seekers  are  a  curse  to  this  country ;  no  sooner  was  my 
election  certain,  than  I  became  the  prey  of  hundreds  of 
hungry,  persistent  applicants  for  office,  whose  highest 
ambition  is  to  feed  at  the  government  crib."  When  he 
bid  me  good-by,  he  said  :  "  Let  me  hear  from  you  once  a 
week  at  least."  As  he  turned  to  leave  me  a  young  army 
officer  stopped  him  and  made  some  request,  to  which  the 


422 


ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS. 


President  replied  with  a  good  deal  of  humor :  "  No,  1 
can't  do  that ;  I  must  not  interfere  ;  they  would  scratch  my 
eyes  out,  if  I  did.  You  must  go  to  the  proper  department." 
As  I  watched  the  President  wending  his  way  towards 
the  Capitol,  I  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  dreadful  re- 
sponsibility that  rested  upon  him.  The  hopes  of  millions 
of  Republicans  throughout  the  world  were  fixed  upon 
him ;  while  twenty  millions  of  his  own  people  looked  to 
him  for  the  salvation  of  the  Republic,  and  four  millions 
of  poor,  down-trodden  slaves  in  the  South  looked  to  him 
for  freedom.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  no  ordinary  man.  He  had 
.a  quick  and  ready  perception  of  facts,  a  retentive  mem- 
ory, and  a  logical  turn  of  mind,  which  patiently  and  un- 
waveringly followed  every  link  in  the  chain  of  thought  on 
every  subject  which  he  investigated.  He  was  honest, 
temperate  and  forgiving.  He  was  a  good  man,  a  man  of 
noble  and  kindly  heart.  I  never  heard  him  speak  un- 
kindly of  any  man  ;  even  the  rebels  received  no  word 
of  anger  from  him. 

MY     SECOND    VISIT    TO    WASHINGTON. 

On  my  arrival  there  (about  midnight)  I  went  direct 
to  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  sent  my  card  to  the  Pres- 
ident, who  had  .retired  to  bed.  In  a  few  minutes  the 
porter  returned  and  requested  me  to  accompany  him  to 
the  President's  office,  where,  in  a  short  time,  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  join  me.  The  room  into  which  I  was  ushered  was 
the  same  in  which  I  had  spent  several  hours  with  the 
President  on  the  occasion  of  my  first  interview  with  him. 
Scattered  about  the  floor,  and  lying  open  on  the  table, 


ALEXANDER     MILTON    ROSS.  423 

were  several  military  maps  and  documents,  indicating 
recent  use.  On  the  wall  hung  a  picture  of  that  noble 
friend  of  freedom,  John  Bright,  of  England. 

In  a  few  minutes  the  President  came  in  and  welcomed 
me  in  the  most  friendly  manner ;  I  expressed  my  regret 
at  disturbing  him  at  such  an  hour.  He  replied  in  a  good- 
humored  manner,  saying  :  "  No,  no  ;  you  did  right ;  you 
may  waken  me  up  whenever  you  please.  I  have  slept  with 
one  eye  open  ever  since  I  came  to  Washington  ;  I  never 
close  both,  except  when  an  office-seeker  is  looking  for  me. 
I  am  glad,"  referring  to  a  letter  I  had  sent  him,  "you 
are  pleased  with  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  but 
there  is  work  before  us  yet.  We  must  make  that  proc- 
lamation effective  by  victories  over  our  enemies ;  it  is  a 
paper  bullet,  after  all,  and  of  no  account,  except  we  can 
sustain  it."  I  expressed  my  belief  that  God  would  aid 
the  cause  of  the  Union  now  that  justice  had  been  done 
to  the  poor  negro.  He  replied  :  "  I  hope  so  ;  the  suffering 
and  misery  that  attends  this  conflict  is  killing  me  by 
inches  ;  I  wish  it  was  over." 

I  then  laid  before  the  President  the  "  rebel  mail."  He 
carefully  examined  the  address  of  each  letter,  making 
occasional  remarks.  At  length  he  found  one  addressed 
to  Franklin  Pierce,  ex-President  of  the  United  States, 
then  residing  in  New  Hampshire,  and  another  to  ex- 
Attorney-General  Gushing,  a  resident  of  Massachusetts. 
He  appeared  much  surprised,  and  remarked,  with  a  sigh, 
but  without  the  slightest  tone  of  asperity  :  "  I  will  have 
these  letters  inclosed  in  official  envelopes,  and  sent  to 
these  parties."  When  he  had  finished  examining  the  ad- 


4*4  ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS. 

dresses,  he  tied  up  all  those  addressed  to  private  individ- 
uals, saying  :  "  I  won't  bother  with  them,  but  these  look 
like  official  letters  ;  I  guess  I'll  go  through  them  now." 
He  then  opened  them,  and  read  their  contents,  slowly 
and  carefully.  While  he  was  thus  occupied,  I  had  an 
excellent  opportunity  of  studying  this  extraordinary 
man.  A  marked  change  had  taken  place  in  his  counte- 
nance since  my  first  interview  with  him.  He  looked 
much  older,  and  bore  traces  of  having  passed  through 
months  of  painful  anxiety  and  trouble.  There  was  a  sad, 
serious  look  in  his  eyes  that  spoke  louder  than  words  of 
the  disappointments,  trials  and  discouragements  he  had 
encountered  since  the  war  began.  The  wrinkles  about 
the  eyes  and  forehead  were  deeper  ;  the  lips  were  firmer, 
but  indicative  of  kindness  and  forbearance.  The  great 
struggle  had  brought  out  the  hidden  riches  of  his  noble 
nature,  and  developed  virtues  and  capacities  which  sur- 
prised his  oldest  and  most  intimate  friends.  He  was 
simple,  but  astute ;  he  possessed  the  rare  faculty  of  seeing 
things  just  as  they  are ;  he  was  a  just,  charitable  and 
honest  man. 

Having  finished  reading  the  letters,  I  rose  to  go, 
saying  that  I  would  go  to  "  Willard's,"  and  have  a  rest. 
"  No,  no,"  said  the  President,  "  it  is  now  three  o'clock ; 
you  shall  stay  with  me  while  you  are  in  town  ;  I'll  find  you 
a  bed,"  and  leading  the  way,  he  took  me  into  a  bedroom, 
saying  :  "  Take  a  good  sleep  ;  you  shall  not  be  disturbed." 
Bidding  me  "good-night "  he  left  the  room  to  go  back 
\nd  pore  over  the  rebel  letters  until  daylight,  as  he 
afterwards  told  me. 


ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS.  425 

If  ever  an  individual  was  raised  up  by  the  Almighty 
to  perform  a  special  service,  that  person  was  Abraham 
Lincoln.  No  parent  could  evince  a  greater  interest  in 
the  welfare  of  his  family  than  he  did  for  the  safety  and 
welfare  of  his  country.  Every  faculty  he  possessed  was 
devoted  to  the  salvation  of  the  Union.  I  did  not  awake 
from  my  sleep  until  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon,  soon 
after  which  Mr.  Lincoln  came  into  my  room  and  laugh- 
ingly said  :  "  When  you  are  ready,  I'll  pilot  you  down  to 
breakfast,"  which  he  did,  and  seating  himself  at  the  table 
near  me,  expressed  his  fears  that  trouble  was  brewing  on 
the  New  Brunswick  border  ;  that  he  had  gathered  further 
information  on  that  point  from  the  correspondence,  which 
convinced  him  that  such  was  the  case.  He  was  here  in- 
terrupted by  a  servant  who  handed  him  a  card,  upon 
reading  wljich  he  arose,  saying :  "  The  Secretary  of  War 
has  received  important  tidings ;  I  must  leave  you  for  the 
present ;  come  to  my  room  after  breakfast,  and  we'll  talk 
over  this  New  Brunswick  affair." 

On  entering  his  room,  I  found  him  busily  engaged  in 
writing ;  at  the  same  time  repeating  in  a  low  voice  the 
words  of  a  poem,  which  I  remembered  reading  many 
years  before.  When  he  stopped  writing  I  asked  him 
who  was  the  author  of  that  poem.  He  replied :  "  I  do 
not  know.  I  have  written  the  verses  down  from  memory, 
at  the  request  of  a  lady  who  is  much  pleased  with  them." 
He  passed  the  sheet,  on  which  he  had  written  the  verses, 
to  me,  saying:  "Have  you  ever  read  them?"  I  replied 
that  I  had,  many  years  previously,  and  that  I  should  be 
pleased  to  have  a  copy  of  them  in  his  handwriting,  when 


426  ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS. 

he  had  time  and  inclination  for  such  work.  He  said  : 
"Well,  you  may  keep  that  copy,  if  you  wish."  The 
following  is  the  poem,  as  written  down  by  Mr.  Lincoln. 


MONTREAL,  1882. 

Oh  !  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ?  — 
Like  a  swift-fleeing  meteor,  a  fast-flying  cloud, 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of  the  wave, 
He  passeth  from  life  to  his  rest  in  the  grave. 

The  leaves  of  the  oak  and  the  willow  shall  fade, 
Be  scattered  around  and  together  be  laid  ; 
And  the  young  and  the  old,  and  the  low  and  the  high, 
Shall  molder  to  dust  and  together  shall  lie. 

The  infant,  a  mother  attended  and  loved  ; 
The  mother,  that  infant's  affection  who  proved  ; 
The  husband,  that  mother  and  infant  who  blest,  — 
Each,  all,  are  away  to  their  dwellings  of  rest. 

The  maid,  on  whose  cheek,  on  whose  brow,  in  whose  eye, 
Shone  beauty  and  pleasure  —  her  triumphs  are  by. 
And  the  memory  of  those  who  loved  her  and  praised, 
Are  alike  from  the  minds  of  the  living  erased. 

The  hand  of  the  king,  that  the  scepter  hath  borne, 
The  brow  of  the  priest,  that  the  miter  hath  worn, 
The  eye  of  the  sage  and  the  heart  of  the  brave, 
Are  hidden  and  lost  in  the  depths  of  the  grave. 

The  peasant,  whose  lot  was  to  sow  and  to  reap, 
The  herdsman,  who  climbed  with  his  goats  up  the  steep, 
The  beggar,  who  wandered  in  search  of  his  bread, 
Have  faded  away  like  the  grass  that  we  tread. 


ALEXANDER    MILTON    ROSS.  427 

The  saint,  who  enjoyed  the  communion  of  heaven, 
The  sinner,  who  dared  to  remain  unforgiven, 
The  wise  and  the  foolish,  the  guilty  and  just, 
Have  quietly  mingled  their  bones  in  the  dust. 

So  the  multitude  goes — like  the  flower  or  the  weed, 
That  withers  away  to  let  others  succeed  ; 
So  the  multitude  comes — even  those  we  behold, 
To  repeat  every  tale  that  has  often  been  told. 

For  we  are  the  same  our  fathers  have  been  ; 
We  see  the  same  sights  our  fathers  have  seen  ; 
We  drink  the  same  stream,  we  view  the  same  sun, 
And  run  the  same  course  our  fathers  have  run. 

The  thoughts  we  are  thinking,  our  fathers  would  think  ; 
From  the  death  we  are  shrinking,  our  fathers  would  shrink ; 
To  the  life  we  are  clinging,  they  also  would  cling — 
But  it  speeds  from  us  all,  like  a  bird  on  the  wing. 

They  loved — but  the  story  we  cannot  unfold  ; 
They  scorned — but  the  heart  of  the  haughty  is  cold  ; 
They  grieved — but  no  wail  from  their  slumber  will  come  ; 
They  joyed — but  the  tongue  of  their  gladness  is  dumb. 

They  died — ay,  they  died — we  things  that  are  now, 
That  walk  on  the  turf  that  lies  over  their  brow, 
And  make  in  their  dwellings  a  transient  abode, 
Meet  the  things  that  they  met  on  their  pilgrimage  road. 

Yea  !  hope  and  despondency,  pleasure  and  pain, 
Are  mingled  together  in  sunshine  and  rain  ; 
And  the  smile  and  the  tear,  the  song  and  the  dirge, 
Still  follow  each  other,  like  surge  upon  surge. 

'Tis  the  wink  of  an  eye — 'tis  the  draught  of  a  breath, 
From  the  blossom  of  health  to  the  paleness  of  death  ; 
From  the  gilded  saloon  to  the  bier  and  the  shroud  : — 
Oh  !  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ? 


428     JOHN    SHERMAN— FREDERICK    MERRICK. 


MR.  LINCOLN  possessed  all  the  qualities  requisite 
to  inspire  confidence  and  to  unite  all  the  loyal 
elements  of  our  much-divided  people  in  the  great  conflict 
of  our  civil  war,  when  the  possibility  of  Republican  institu- 
tions, in  a  wide  extended  country,  was  on  trial.  At  times 
I  thought  him  slow,  but  he  was  fast  enough  to  be  abreast 
with  the  body  of  his  countrymen,  and  his  heart  beat 
steadily  and  hopefully  with  them. 


MANSFIELD,  1881. 


WISE  in  council,  prudent  in  action,  firm  upon 
necessity,  humane  always,  patriotic,  honest  be- 
yond a  shadow  of  suspicion,  he  sought  his  country's  good 
in  self-sacrificing  devotion.  Noble  as  were  many  of  his 
acts,  he  will  be  chiefly  known  in  history  as  the  great 
Emancipator. 


DELAWARE,  i88a 


ROSE     TERRY    COOKE.  429 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  STRANGULATUS    PRO    REPUBLICA." 

Hundreds  there  have  been,  loftier  than  their  kind, 

Heroes  and  victors  in  the  world's  great  wars  : 

Hundreds,  exalted  as  the  eternal  stars, 

By  the  great  heart,  or  keen  and  mighty  mind ; 

There  have  been  sufferers,  maimed  and  halt  and  blind, 

Who  bore  their  woes  in  such  triumphant  calm 

That  God  hath  crowned  them  with  the  martyr's  palm  ; 

A.nd  there  were  those  who  fought  through  fire  to  find 

Their  Master's  face,  and  were  by  fire  refined. 

But  who  like  thee,  oh  Sire  !  hath  ever  stood 

Steadfast  for  truth  and  right,  when  lies  and  wrong 

Rolled  their  dark  waters,  turbulent  and  strong; 

Who  bore  reviling,  baseness,  tears  and  blood 

Poured  out  like  water,  till  thine  own  was  spent, 

Then  reaped  Earth's  sole  reward — a  grave  and  monument ! 


WlNSTED,    l882. 


4  jo 


NEWMAN    HALL. 


MY  admiration  of  the  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
has  been  put  into  permanent  form  in  the  erection 
of  the  "  Lincoln  Tower,"  adjoining  my  church.  This 
structure  cost  ,£7,000.  Half  of  it  was  given,  with  great 
readiness,  by  Britishers ;  the  other  half  was  contributed 
in  America.  A  stone  over  the  principal  entrance  bears 
the  honored  name  of  Lincoln.  Two  class-rooms  in  it 
bear  the  names  of  Washington  and  Wilberforce.  The 
spire  is  built  in  alternate  stripes  with  stars  between.  A 
marble  tablet  explains  the  origin  of  the  structure,  and 
records  the  fact  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  by  Lincoln. 
He  nobly  lived  for  freedom,  and  in  its  cause  died  a 
martyr's  death.  Few  men  in  the  world's  history  have 
been  privileged  to  do  a  work  involving  so  much  benefit 
to  mankind.  • 


LONDON,  1881. 


CHARLES    GAYARRE.  431 


I    THINK  Mr.  Lincoln  possessed  much  originality  o! 
character  ;   that  he  was  humane  and   pure,   kindly 
disposed  toward  the  South,  and  that,  whatever  may  have 
been  his  errors  or  deficiencies,  he  always  meant  to  act 
according  to  what  he  considered  patriotic  motives  and 

the  dictates  of  an  honest  conscience.     Hence  I  have  no 

- 

hesitation  to  declare  that  I  have  never  ceased  to  be 
convinced  that  his  tragic  death,  at  the  time  it  occurred, 
was  a  most  fatal  event  for  the  Southern  States,  which  I 
sincerely  believe  would  have  been  treated  with  much 
more  liberality  by  him  than  they  had  the  good  fortune 
to  be  after  his  assassination. 


NEW  ORLEANS,  1882. 


432 


VV.     DALE—PARKE     GODWIN. 


PATRIOT,  who  made  the  pageantries  of  kings 
Like  shadows  seem,  and  unsubstantial  things. 


BIRMINGHAM,  ENGLAND,  1881. 


THE  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln  will  stand  forever, 
as  the  second  in  our  history,  following  immediately 
that  of  George  Washington.  This  one  was  the  principal 
agent  in  emancipating  the  western  continent  from  foreign 
domination,  that  one  the  principal  agent  in  rescuing  it 
from  a  domestic  domination  even  more  hurtful.  Both 
were  spotless  apostles  of  human  liberty. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


STANLEY    MATTHEWS— CHAS.     W.    DILKE.    433 


"  I  "HE  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  entombed  in 
-L  the  hearts  of  the  American  people.  Their  love 
and  gratitude  are  the  columns  which  support  the  monu- 
ment of  his  fame,  more  enduring  than  bronze  or  marble. 
His  will  live  forever,  not  only  in  the  story  of  his  country, 
but^  in  the  reverence  and  affection  of  his  countrymen. 
The  purity  of  his  patriotism  inspired  him  with  the 
wisdom  of  a  statesman  and  the  courage  of  a  martyr. 


CINCINNATI,  1880. 


w 


ITH     profound    admiration    of     Abraham    Lin- 
coln. 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  1881. 

28 


434 


W.     0.     STODDARD. 


MY  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Lincoln  began 
in  1858.  Afterwards,  as  one  of  his  secretaries 
at  Washington,  I  had  many  opportunities  for  personal 
observations.  There  were  many  strong  men  grouped 
around  him,  from  time  to  time ;  statesmen,  jurists, 
scholars,  journalists,  generals,  diplomatists  ;  yet  under  no 
circumstances  did  he  fail  to  make  upon  me  the  indelible 
impression  that  he  was  the  greatest,  the  strongest,  the 
noblest  of  them.  I  have  never  seen  him  speaking  with 
any  man  who  seemed  to  me  his  equal. 


MORRISANIA,  1 88 1. 


C.     S.    HARRINGTON.  435 


A  SAGE  in  wisdom,  worthy  of  the  best  of  the 
ancients  ;  a  man  such  as  Diogenes  would  have 
been  delighted  to  find  ;  a  statesman  of  the  school  of 
sound  common  sense,  and  a  philanthropist  of  the  most 
practical  type  ;  a  patriot  without  a  superior  —  his  mon- 
ument is  a  country  preserved.  His  name  will  always 
be  enrolled  among  the  heroes  and  saviors  of  mankind. 


1880. 


436 


/.     C.     BLACK. 


PLAIN  in  body  and  mind;  simple  and  direct  in 
speech  ;  great,  rugged,  sincere ;  a  passionate  lover 
of  liberty ;  trained  in  the  people's  school  to  be  their  own 
unyielding  instrument ;  in  his  high  career  regarding 
their  rights  and  prosperity  ;  lawyer  enough  to  hold  to  the 
form  until  it  antagonized  the  spirit  of  American  law ; 
statesman  enough  not  to  kill  the  spirit  for  the  form's 
sake — his  reward  is  apotheosis ;  his  fame  will  widen  to 
the  utmost  horizon  of  human  growth. 


1880. 


B.    HAYES— GEORGE    P.     FISHER. 


437 


NOW  all  men  begin  to  see  that  the  plain  people, 
who  at  last  came  to  love  him  and  to  lean  upon 
his  wisdom,  and  trust  him  absolutely,  were  altogether 
right,  and  that  in  deed  and  purpose  he  was  earnestly 
devoted  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole  country  and  of  all 
its  inhabitants.  To  him  more  than  to  any  other  man 
the  cause  of  Union  and  Liberty  is  indebted  for  its  final 
triumph.  Lincoln  was  the  very  embodiment  of  the 
principles  by  which  our  country  and  its  inhabitants  were 
saved. 


WASHINGTON,  1880. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  had  a  sterling  common 
JL\.  sense,  a  vein  of  humor,  a  deep  well  of  gentle, 
kindly  feeling,  a  long-suffering  patience,  an  unselfish 
patriotism,  which,  when  viewed  in  connection  with  his 
death  as  a  martyr  for  his  country,  are  sufficient  to  secure 
for  him  a  lasting  place  in  the  catalogue  of  the  world's 
leaders. 


NEW  HAVEN,  1882. 


FRED.    H.    BOWMAN. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Great  Champion  of  Freedom  !     When  the  blow 
Came  from  the  traitor's  hand — with  one  wild  start 
A  nation's  love  awoke,  and  every  heart 
Stood  still  with  sorrow.     It  was  thine  to  sow 
The  seeds  of  liberty,  from  whence  shall  grow 
New  bonds  to  knit  mankind.     Tho'  far  apart — 
Sunder'd  by  oceans — with  the  lightning's  dart 
The  world  was  roused  to  share  Columbia's  woe. 
At  thy  command  the  manacles  were  burst, 
And  the  sad  slaves  came  forth,  forever  free. 
His  life  was  bought,  but  the  price  paid  was  first 
Thine  own.     'Twas  thine  in  Freedom's  shrine  to  be 
The  proto-martyr  ;  now  throughout  all  time 
Thy  name  shall  stand  heroic  and  sublime. 


HALIFAX,  1882. 


WILLARD     WARNER.  439 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  stands  out  on  the  pages  of 
£~\.  American  history,  unique,  grand  and  peculiar.  As 
honest,  unselfish  and  patriotic  as  Washington,  he  was  his 
superior  as  an  orator  and  logician,  and  dealt  successfully 
with  larger  and  graver  matters.  In  tact  he  has  never  had 
an  equal  in  this  country.  Mr.  Salmon  P.  Chase  once  said 
to  me  that  "  his  cunning  amounted  to  genius." 

Like  the  mighty  oak  which  towers  far  above  its 
fellows,  he  was  a  growth  of  the  forces  of  nature,  which  is 
to  say,  of  God ;  and  one  cannot  resist  the  conclusion  that 
he  was  prepared,  in  a  special  sense,  by  God,  for  the  work 
he  had  to  do. 


TECUMSEH,  1882. 


440  WILLIAM     WILLDER     WHEILDON. 


THE  world  will  readily  admit  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  a  very  remarkable  man  in  his  character  and 
career,  as  in  the  achievement  which  crowned  his  life  with 
honor ;  not,  as  is  sometimes  said,  one  of  a  thousand,  but 
one  of  many  thousands  of  much  higher  promise  than 
attached  to  him  in  their  early  days ;  and  yet  his  fame 
and  the  immortal  character  of  his  memory  depends 
chiefly  upon  two  acts,  neither  of  which  was,  properly 
speaking,  his  own :  one,  the  proclamation  abolishing 
slavery,  which  was  in  a  manner  forced  upon  him  and  the 
country;  and  the  other  his  assassination,  which  was 
brought  upon  him,  in  whole  or  in  part,  by  that  act :  the 
penalty,  as  it  were,  of  one  of  the  noblest  deeds  on  record 
among  mankind. 

It  is  common  in  this  country,  where  no  law  of  primo- 
geniture prevails,  to  find  men  born  in  the  middling 
classes,  or  even  lower  classes,  so-called,  who  reach  sta- 
tions and  positions  of  eminence.  In  this  respect  Mr. 
Lincoln  sustained  himself  in  every  position  he  reached, 
or,  we  might  almost  say,  that  reached  him. 

One  might  easily  imagine  that  a  common  rail-splitter 
and  woodman  might  become  a  boatman,  or  even,  under 
circumstances,  a  soldier ;  but  who  would  ever  dream  of 
his  becoming  a  lawyer,  a  politician,  a  legislator,  a  states- 
man, and,  much  less,  the  President  of  the  nation  and  the 
head  man  of  thirty  or  forty  millions  of  people :  one  of 
the  highest  positions,  few  as  they  are  in  number,  in  the 
civilized  world  ? 


WILLIAM     WILLDER     WHEILDON.  441 

If  any  one  had  seen  him  splitting  rails  it  would  be 
natural  enough  to  suppose  he  might  some  day  become  a 
river  boatman ;  and  again,  when  acting  as  a  river  boat- 
man, it  might  occur  to  an  observer,  seeing  his  energy  and 
readiness,  that  he  would  ultimately  become  captain  of  a 
raft,  but  few  persons  would  have  thought  of  anything 
beyend  that. 

So,  again,  when  he  reached  the  bar — if  there  was  any 
such  thing  as  a  bar  at  that  time  in  the  place  where  he 
practiced — it  might  possibly  be  thought,  from  his  tact 
and  efficiency  as  a  counselor,  that  he  might  ultimately 
become  a  judge  ;  and  yet  again,  who  that  ever  knew  him 
as  a  rail-splitter  on  his  father's  farm,  or  a  boat-hand  on 
the  Mississippi  river,  or  even  as  a  lawyer,  ever  dreamed 
that  he  would  reach  the  highest  position  in  the  nation — 
perform  the  highest  act  for  human  freedom  ever  dis- 
charged by  man  ?  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  tact,  which  is  often  the  equivalent  of  talent, 
and  was  able  to  qualify  and  adjust  himself  to  every 
position  to  which  he  was  elected  or  reached  by  his  own 
efforts  or  the  favor  of  his  friends. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  acute  sense  of  the  absurd  and 
ridiculous,  of  obstacles  and  objections,  real  or  imaginary, 
and  a  quick  wit,  which  held  them  to  account  and 
"brought  down  the  house"  on  all  occasions.  He  was 
fond  of  relating  a  good  practical  story,  illustrative  of 
human  life,  which  were  often  original  with  him,  always 
apt  to  the  occasion,  and  told  with  a  gu^to  which  was 
characteristic,  and  may  be  said  to  be  a  quality  and  a 
passion  of  his  distinct  personality. 

Strange  to  say,  the  life,  career  and  death  of  President 


442  WILLIAM     WILLDER     WHEILDON. 

Garfield  were,  in  many  respects,  parallel  with  those  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  Both  were  remarkable  men  and  both 
are  lamented  by  a  nation  of  people  and  the  wonder  of 
the  civilized  world. 

The  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was,  as  it  were,  a  destiny 
unforeseen,  uncontemplated,  unrevealed,  while  it  was 
progressive,  almost  without  effort  or  expectation. 

Success,  and  that  apparently  unsought,  seems  to  have 
ruled,  guided  and  governed  him,  and  gained  for  him  a 
reputation  and  a  fame  not  excelled  by  any  American 
statesman. 


CONCORD,  1882. 


THOS.    BURK— SAMUEL    F.     MILLER, 


443 


I    HAVE  great  admiration  for  Lincoln.     I  regard  him 
as  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  our  time.     His  fame 
is  growing  every  day. 


HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  1882. 


MR.  LINCOLN,  next  to  Washington,  is  the  great 
central  figure  of  our  history  in  another  genera- 
tion. As  the  lapse  of  time  shall  smooth  the  asperities 
of  a  civil  war,  and  shall  throw  its  mellowing  influences 
over  the  stories  of  his  early  life,  his  public  services  as 
President,  his  character  as  a  statesman  and  leader,  will 
rise  higher  and  shine  more  brightly,  until  it  shall  stand 
without  a  rival  or  a  peer  in  the  day  to  which  he  be- 
longed. 


WASHINGTON,  1880. 


444  W-     H<     GIBSON— L.     C.     HO  UK. 


r  I  "HE  child  of  nature,  Abraham  Lincoln  illustrated 
JL  in  his  life  the  grand  possibilities  of  the  American 
citizen,  and  in  his  position  of  national  Executive,  he  led  a 
great  people  through  the  perils  of  civil  war,  preserving 
the  integrity  of  the  Union  and  breaking  the  fetters  of  four 
millions  of  God's  poor.  Patriot,  statesman,  emancipator, 
his  name  is  immortal,  and  his  memory  will  be  cherished 
through  all  the  advancing  ages. 


COLUMBUS,  1881. 


I  REGARD  Mr.  Lincoln  as  being  peculiarly  great  in 
many  respects,  and  certainly  possessed  of  more  genius 
than  any  public  man  of  the  generation  in  which  he  lived. 
I  have  always,  since  studying  his  character,  considered  him 
as  much  a  child  of  Providence  as  Moses  or  any  one  of  the 
Prophets,  excepting  alone  in  the  matter  of  inspiration, 
which,  of  course,  was  not  human  genius. 


WASHINGTON,  1881. 


STEWART    L.     WOODFORD. 


445 


BULL  RUN  found  an  administration  zealous  of  inter- 
est, but  irresolute  as  to  method.  It  found  a  Pres- 
ident seeking  the  right,  but  modestly  relying  upon  others 
and  showing  little  faith  in  self.  It  left  a  sad-eyed,  quaint- 
featured  man,  who  from  that  hour,  with  one  hand  resting 
on  the  heart  of  the  people  and  feeling  constantly  how  and 
why  that  heart  was  throbbing,  from  thereafter  accepted 
all  the  responsibility  of  his  place.  He  moved  and  spoke 
thereafter  as  the  people  would  have  moved  and  spoken, 
had  that  people  sat  incarnate  in  his  seat.  Forever  there- 
after, with  humanity,  but  iron  resolution,  he  directed  the 
issue  and  bore  himself  the  terrible  burden  of  the  strife. 


446  CLINTON    JB.     FISK. 


I  MOST  heartily  indorse  the  enterprise  for  revealing  to 
succeeding  generations  how  large  a  place  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen.  I  knew 
and  loved  him  well ;  a  letter  from  him,  now  before  me, 
shows  how,  in  the  midst  of  the  war  for  the  Union,  his 
thoughts  were  running  on  the  best  methods  of  restoring 
fraternity  and  good  fellowship  when  the  strife  should  be 
over.  I  was  in  command  in  Missouri,  and  in  response  to 
his  inquiries  touching  the  administration  of  the  semi-civil- 
military  state  of  affairs  then  existing,  I  had  the  honor  to 
suggest  what  he  highly  approved  and  adopted.  With  his 
own  hand  he  wrote  me  as  follows  : 

"  EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON, 

"October  13,  1863. 
'  GEN'L  CLINTON  B.  FISK, 

"  Pilot  Knob,  l\Jo. 

"  My  Dear  Gen'l : — I  have  received  and  read,  with 
great  satisfaction,  your  letter  of  the  8th  inst.  It  is  so  full 
of  charity  and  good  will,  I  wish  I  had  time  to  more  than 
thank  you  for  it. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

I  regarded  Mr.  Lincoln  as  the  greatest  man  of  his 
times,  as  the  most  unselfish  and  most  honest  ruler  of  the 
century. 


CLINTON    B.     FISK. 


447 


"  Our  hearts  lie  buried  in  the  dust, 

With  him  so  true  and  tender, 
The  patriot's  stay,  the  people's  trust, 
The  shield  of  the  offender. 

"  Let  every  murmuring  heart  be  still, 
As,  bowing  to  God's  sovereign  will 
Our  best-loved  we  surrender." 

Whatever  shall  keep  green  the  memory  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  let  that  be  done. 


SEABRIGHT,  1882. 


448  T.     W.     S.     K1DD. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN, 

LAWYER  AND  CITIZEN. 
BY  THE  "  CRIER  OF  THE  COURT." 

TO  remember  the  sayings  and  acts  of  those  with 
whom  we  come  in  every-day  contact  is  a  task 
made  easier  when  the  memory  of  events  are  of  a  pleasant 
character,  sweetened  by  high  personal  regard.  My 
recollections  of  Mr.  Lincoln  are  all  pleasant  to  memory. 
The  bitterness  of  political  campaigns  could  not  poison  the 
ordinary  antagonist  of  Abraham  Lincoln  into  the  slight- 
est show  of  personal  disrespect,  while  the  influence  of  the 
genial  grandeur  of  his  nature,  on  one  who  esteemed  him 
personally,  as  I  did,  would  wipe  away  the  gauzy  webs  of 
aspersion  woven  by  political  spiders  during  the  heat  and 
excitement  of  a  canvass.  Politically  I  shall  utter  not  an- 
other line  nor  syllable  in  reference  to  Mr.  Lincoln — only 
this — I  was  not  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  party,  hence  what  I  may 
say  of  him  will  be  outside  of  prejudice  politically.  My 
introduction  to  Mr.  Lincoln  personally,  whom  I  had  known 
by  reputation  as  a  leading  Whig  politician  of  Illinois, 
since  the  campaign  of  1848,  was  in  the  spring  of  1854. 
I  was  engaged  in  conversation  with  Dr.  Harrison  and 
Rev.  Peter  Cartwright,  explaining  to  them  the  "Atkins 
Self- Raking  Reaper,"  when  Mr.  Lincoln  came  up  and  the 
doctor  gave  me  an  introduction.  He  told  me  to  proceed 
with  the  explanation,  which  I  did,  and  he  seemed  to  take 
quite  a  lively  interest.  At  the  close  of  the  explanation 


T.      W.     S.     KIDD.  449 

Mr.  Lincoln  surprised  me  not  a  little  by  remarking  in  his 
peculiar  emphatic  manner,  "  Young  man,  I  think  you  are 
just  the  one  I  am  looking  for,"  and  without  giving  me  an 
opportunity  to  ask  for  what  purpose  he  wanted  me,  he 
said, :( If  you  are  through  with  the  doctor  and  Uncle  Peter, 
will  you  walk  over  to  the  state-house  with  me,  I  want  to 
use  you."  I  consented  to  go,  remarking  to  Dr.  Harrison,  as 
I  did  so  :  "  Doctor,  I  only  know  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  Whig,  but 
as  the  Whig  party  is  dead,  I  suppose  he  will  not  be  danger- 
ous." He  laughed  and  we  started,  but  after  going  about 
twenty  feet  turned  and  said,  "  Ho,  Doc  !  I  hope  our  reaper 
friend  will  have  better  luck  than  some  in  this  county  who 
thought  the  Whig  party  was  dead  !"  This  was  evidently 
intended  as  a  "twit"  at  some  old  Whig  politician,  as  both 
the  doctor  and  the  pioneer  of  Methodism  had  a  hearty 
laugh  over  it. 

His  use  of  me  I  soon  learned;  he^  showed  me  a 
number  of  pieces  taken  from  two  reaping-machines — the 
Manny  and  McCormick — which  had  been  taken  to  his 
room  for  the  purpose  of  studying  the  various  movements, 
to  ascertain  wherein  one  of  the  machines  was  an  infringe- 
ment of  the  patent  granted  to  the  other.  Mr.  Lincoln 
possessed  but  little  practical  knowledge  of  machinery, 
but  his  fondness  for  the  study  of  mechanics  very  much 
interested  him,  and  he  could  very  readily,  with  but  little 
explanation,  comprehend  the  uses  of  different  parts  and 
their  relation  to  other  parts.  It  was  a  pleasurable  task 
for  me  to  explain  these  two  machines  ;  to  aid  him  in 
ascertaining  their  movements ;  in  noting  the  difference 
or  pointing  out  the  mechanical  equivalents  of  the  one 
for  the  other,  or  where  I  thought  the  same  principle  was 

29 


450  T.      W.     S.     KIDD. 

applied  in  the  construction  or  operation  of  the  various 
parts  to  accomplish  a  specific  purpose,  or  where  the 
mechanism  of  the  one  differed  from  the  other,  although 
the  end  reached  was  the  same. 

That  little  introduction  knit  two  very  opposite  na- 
tures, in  many  respects,  very  closely  together.  Neither 
could,  or  at  least  did  not,  talk  long  upon  a  subject  with- 
out a  story  was  suggested,  when  it  would  flow  out  as 
natural  as  life,  and  frequently  to  the  merriment  of  both. 
My  business  had  naturally  led  me  in  contact  with  a  great 
many  stories,  which  it  was  the  least  of  all  my  troubles  to 
retain.  I  found  one  with  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  them, 
and  a  taste  for  telling  them  unsurpassed. 

This  was  my  introduction  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  each 
day  I  came  in  contact  with  him  in  our  closer  relation  of 
lawyer  and  "Crier  of  the  Court"  only  strengthened  our 
"  fellow  feeling,"  until,  without  appearing  egotistic,  I 
really  loved  Lincoln,  and  I  had  many  evidences  of  his 
personal  regard  for  myself.  As  a  "story-teller"  Mr. 
Lincoln  has  been  misunderstood,  and  in  this  short  article, 
if  I  can  place  him  before  the  country  robbed  of  what  some 
natures — who  never  knew  the  man — would  make  appear 
as  a  "trifling"  attribute  in  his  genial  "make-up."  The 
impression  has  been  sought  to  be  left  on  the  minds 
of  those  who  have  read  some  of  the  criticisms  on  his 
character  that  "story-telling"  with  Lincoln  was  an  in- 
dication of  a  "great  waste  of  time,"  and  "a  contribution 
to  the  indolent  and  shiftless  of  social  life."  This  view 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  story-teller  is  a  great  wrong  to  his 
memory,  and  they  who  have  measured  him  thus  knew 
him  not.  Mr.  Lincoln's  stories  were  a  recreation  to  him, 


T.     W.     S,    KIDD.  451 

and  he  only  used  them  to  relieve  an  over-taxed  mind  or 
to  "make  a  point"  by  telling  a  story  which  would  require 
hours  of  argument.  As  Linder  once  said  to  an  Eastern 
lawyer,  who  expressed  the  opinion  that  Mr.  Lincoln  lost 
time  in  telling  stories  to  a  jury  :  "  Ah,  my  friend  !  Don't 
lay  the  flattering  unction  to  your  soul  that  he  is  losing 
time.  Lincoln  is  like  Tansey's  horse,  he  'breaks  to 
win.' '  Mr.  Lincoln  could  tell  a  story  as  no  other  man  I 
ever  heard  make  the  attempt.  He  had  a  purpose  in 
telling  them  before  juries  and  on  the  stump.  He  could 
annihilate  an  opponent  with  a  story,  and  the  other  would 
scarcely  know  what  hurt  him. 

It  will  scarcely  be  presumed  that  he  was  always  tell- 
ing stories.  It  was  the  force  of  one  of  his  well-told 
stories  that  gave  him  the  reputation  of  a  story-teller. 
Modesty  would  suggest  to  the  "Crier  of  the  Court"  to 
close  with  this  simple  explanation.  He  would  not  have 
ventured  thus  much  only  to  correct  an  error  in  regard  to 
one  whom  those  failing  to  understand  the  man  would 
conclude  that — 

"  Every  word  he  spoke, 
And  even  when  he  wrote, 
Out  would  pop  a  little  joke, 
Or  end  with  anecdote." 

He  told  stones,  very  good  ones,  too,  which  we  hope 
long  to  remember ;  but  the  mind  which  could  grapple 
with  questions  requiring  an  army  of  a  million  men  and 
great  executive  ability  was  made  equal  to  the  task  by 
just  such  innocent  recreation  to  self  and  amusement  of 
his  friends. 

As  I  have  said  in  my  lecture,  so  I  repeat  here,  "  Mr. 


452  T.     W.     S.     KIDD. 

Lincoln  has  puzzled  wiser  heads  than  those  supposed  to 
be  carried  through  life  on  the  shoulders  of  a  Court  Crier. 
Attempts  to  define  and  portray  him  are  numerous.  They 
are  found  floating  on  the  sea  of  literature  in  evety  con- 
ceivable shape  from  contact  with  the  waves  of  tribulation 
or  success  from  the  frequent  jars  and  bumps  on  the  rocks, 
as  well  as  the  shoals  of  criticism.  I  have  not  ventured 
on  this  sea  with  my  flimsy  bark  to  attempr  a  reputation  at 
the  expense  of  a  lawyer  I  honored,  a  citizen  whom  I  knew 
well  and  loved,  but  rather  to  give  those  not  favored  with 
the  same  relation  a  court  officer  bears  to  the  attorney,  a 
homely  sketch  of  an  honest  man's  private  life,  as  a  law- 
yer, his  going  in  and  coming  out  before  a  court,  his  daily 
walk  and  conversation,  the  little  things  of  a  great  man's 
life  which  make  up  the  great  characteristics  of  which 
only  the  world  at  large  sees  and  hears  so  little. 

"  One  of  the  finest  fields  for  the  study  of  characters 
that  more  frequently  rise  in  splendid  proportions  than 
any  other  in  this  nation,  is  the  court-room.  Certainly  no 
field  or  profession  has  proved  so  prolific  in  the  produc- 
tion and  development  of  ruling  spirits,  as  that  of  the 
law. 

"  As  a  lawyer  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  classed  with  the 
first  of  the  profession  in  all  the  branches  of  the  science. 
Others  who  still  delight  in  having  had  a  professional  asso- 
ciation with  him — an  intimate  acquaintance  with  him — 
.  hile  ho.  lived  and  practiced  law  at  the  s*me  bar,  could 
•jstly  lay  claim  to  and  would  in  equity  be  allowed  credit  for 
.  greater  amount  of  legal  attainments,  a  more  comprehen- 
sive knowledge  of  the  premises   in  particular   branches 
,.ian  he.     But  he  possessed  a  general  knowledge  of  all 


T.      W.     S.     KIDD.  453 

the  branches.  He  had  taken  a  draught  from  nearly  all 
the  various  streams  that  flow  from  the  one  great  well- 
spring  of  a  '  Rule  of  action,'  and  was,  in  a  word,  a 
good  lawyer.  Mr.  Lincoln  could  boast  that  in  some 
branches  of  the  law  he  had  greater  knowledge  than  some 
of  his  brothers ;  had  more  freely  than  many  others  ana- 
lyzed the  medicinal  properties  of  these  waters,  with  a 
view  solely  to  ascertain  their  healing  virtues  for  the  ills 
of  litigation.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  impressed  with  the  idea, 
which  should  govern  every  honorable  member  of  the  pro- 
fession, that  a  lawyer's  duty  was  to  settle,  not  create 
litigation. 

"Judge  Davis — who  loved  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  brother 
— said  of  him:  '  He  was  a  great  lawyer,  both  at  Nisi 
Prius  and  before  an  appellate  tribunal.'  It  was  gen- 
erally thought  among  the  members  of  the  bar  that  his 
strength  was  most  apparent  when  standing  before  a  jury. 
How  often  have  I  heard  his  shrill  and  not  unfrequently 
musical  voice  ring  out  the  convincing  notes  from  an  in- 
tellect as  vigorous,  although  not  so  quick  to  perceive, 
yet  so  comprehensive,  exact  and  clear  that  they  stamped 
him  in  the  estimation  of  every  listener  as  an  able,  im- 
pressive master  of  the  intricacies  of  his  case.  He  was  an 
honest  man  and  a  lawyer,  seldom,  if  ever,  allowing  him- 
self to  be  found  on  the  wrong  side  of  a  case.  It  was  to 
this  fact  more  than  to  any  other  that  he  owed  his  success 
at  the  bar.  In  canvassing  his  success  as  a  lawyer  and 
statesman  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  hear  almost  every 
shade  of  opinion  expressed  of  him  by  members  of  the 
Springfield  bar.  But,  Crier  only  as  I  claim  to  have 
been,  I  think  the  great  secret  has  been  overlooked,  and 


454  T.      W.     S.     KIDD. 

with  all  due  deference  to  opinions  that  I  have  seldom 
found  erroneous,  I  beg  to  suggest  his  extraordinary 
moral  courage  to  do  the  right,  regardless  of  the  conse- 
quences, as  the  secret  lever  that  lifted  him  slowly  but 
steadily  above  his  fellows  when  contending  with  brothers 
at  the  bar,  or  afterward,  as  the  Chief  of  a  great  nation, 
under  the  most  complicated  and  trying  circumstances. '; 


/.     GILLESPIE.  455 


I  HAVE  been  requested  to  give  my  recollections 
touching  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  late  President 
of  the  United  States.  I  understand  that  it  is  not  expected 
that  I  should  prepare  a  life  or  biography  of  him,  but 
simply  give  such  incidents  as  would  illustrate  his  charac- 
ter and  minor  life.  So  much  has  been  said  and  written 
respecting  the  public  history  of  the  great  commoner  of 
America,  that  I  feel  that  it  would  be  a  work  of  supereroga- 
tion in  me  to  attempt  a  review  of  his  public  career.  »I  shall 
confine  myself  in  what  I  shall  say  to  what  I  know  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  man,  and  his  political  life,  at  home 
or  in  Illinois.  In  order  to  give  assurance  that  I  had  the 
acquaintance,  and  to  some  degree  the  confidence,  of  the 
illustrious  man,  I  will  give  a  copy  of  a  letter  from  him  to 
me,  now  in  my  possession  ;  but  I  will  first  premise  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  was  written.  In  1857  and 
1858,  William  Bissell,  a  Republican,  was  Governor  of 
Illinois.  The  Democrats  at  the  session  of  the  Legisla- 
ture of  those  years  obtained  a  majority  in  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  passed  two  acts,  an  appropriation  bill,  and  an 
apportionment  bill,  the  latter  of  which  the  Governor  in- 
tended to  veto,  and  the  former  to  approve.  The  bills  re- 
sembled each  other  in  external  appearance  and  were  both 
laid  upon  the  Governor's  table  at  the  same  time,  and  by 
mistake  he  approved  of  the  bill  he  intended  to  veto,  which 
was  reported  to  the  House  as  having  been  sanctioned 
by  the  Executive.  In  a  short  time  the  Governor  was 
made  aware  of  his  mistake,  and  he  instantly  convened  a 


4s6  /.     GILLESPIE. 

meeting  of  such  of  his  friends  a'j  could  be  summoned,  to 
consult  as  to  the  best  means  to  extricate  himself  from  the 
dilemma.  N.  B.  Judd,  of  Chicago,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  believe, 
Gov.  Koerner,  of  St.  Clair,  and  I,  were  of  the  number. 
We  advised  Governor  Bissell  to  instantly  send  his  messen- 
ger to  the  House,  and  request  the  return  of  the  bill.  The 
majority,  not  suspecting  anything,  complied  with  the  re- 
quest, and  the  Governor  erased  his  name.  The  Democrats 
employed  General  McClernand  to  apply  for  a  writ  of 
mandamus  to  compel  the  Secretary  of  State,  Hatch,  to 
report  the  apportionment  bill  as  having  received  the 
Executive  approval  and  become  a  law.  Here  is  the 
letter : 

•  • 
"  SPRINGFIELD,  January  19,  1858. 

"  HON.  JOSEPH  GILLESPIE. 
"  My  Dear  Sir  : 

"  This  morning  Colonel  McClernand 
showed  me  a  petition  for  a  mandamus  against  the 
Secretary  of  State  to  compel  him  to  certify  the  ap- 
portionment act  of  last  session,  and  he  says  it  will  be 
presented  to  the  court  to-morrow  morning.  We  shall  be 
allowed  three  or  four  days  to  get  up  a  return,  and  I  for 
one  want  the  benefit  of  consultation  with  you.  Please 
come  right  up. 

"  Yours,  as  ever, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

I  visited  him  as  desired,  and  agreed  with  him  as  to  the 
line  of  defense  he  should  pursue,  and  after  a  few  days  re- 
ceived the  following  letter  : 


/.     GILL  ESP  IE.  457 

"SPRINGFIELD,  February  yth,  1858. 
"  HON.  J.  GILLESPIE. 

"  My  Dear  Sir: 

"Yesterday  morning  the  court  over- 
ruled the  demurrer  to  Hatch's  return  in  the  mandamus 
case.  McClernand  was  present,  said  nothing  about  plead- 
ing over,  and  so  I  suppose  the  matter  is  ended.  The 
court  gave  no  opinion  for  the  discussion,  but  Peck  tells 
me  confidentially  that  they  were  unanimous  in  the 
opinion  that  even  if  the  Governor  had  signed  the  bill 
purposely,  he  had  the  right  to  strike  his  name  off  so  long 
as  the  bill  remained  in  his  custody  to  control. 

"  Yours  as  ever, 

•'  A.  LINCOLN." 

So  much  has  been  said  about  Mr.  Lincoln  that  I 
hardly  know  how  I  shall  go  about  giving  my  views 
touching  or  delineating  his  life  and  character  without 
traveling  in  old  grooves.  Mr.  Lincoln  seldom  said  any- 
thing on  the  subject  of  religion.  He  said  once  to  me  that 
he  never  could  reconcile  the  "  prescience  of  Deity  with 
the  uncertainty  of  events."  I  inferred  from  that  remark 
that  his  antecedents  were  of  the  Baptist  persuasion.  He 
said  at  the  same  time  that  he  thought  it  was  unprofitable 
to  discuss  the  dogmas  of  predestination  and  free  will. 
After  he  became  President  he  told  me  that  circumstances 
had  happened  during  the  war  to  induce  him  to  a  belief 
in  "  special  providences."  I  think  his  mind  was  unsettled 
on  religious  matters  until  his  election,  and  he  surveyed 
the  vast  responsibilities  cast  upon  him.  After  that,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  he  became  religiously  inclined.  It  was 


458  /.     GILLESPIE. 

difficult  for  him  to  believe  without  demonstration.  He 
was  up  in  Bible  reading  and  quoted  from  and  illustrated 
by  Bible  incidents.  To  give  an  instance,  I  called  upon 
him,  to  get  his  opinion  as  to  the  probabilities  of  the 
conclusion  of  the  war.  He  said  it  would  very  soon  be 
ended  by  the  overthrow  of  the  rebellion.  "  Now,"  said 
I,  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  what  is  to  be  done  with  the  rebels  ?'* 
"  Well,"  said  he,  "  some  people  think  their  heads  ought 
to  come  off,  but  there  are  too  many  of  them  for  that,  and 
if  it  was  left  to  me,  I  could  not  draw  the  line  between 
those  whose  heads  ought  to  come  off  or  stay  on."  He 
said  he  was  favorably  impressed  with  the  policy  of  King 
David.  Said  I :  "  What  was  that?"  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  you 
remember  that  during  the  rebellion  of  Absalom,  while 
David  was  fleeing  from  Jerusalem,  Shimei  cursed  him. 
After  the  rebellion  was  put  down,  Shimei  craved  a 
pardon.  Abishai,  David's  nephew,  the  son  of  Zeruiah, 
David's  sister,  said  :  '  This  man  ought  not  to  be  pardoned  ; 
he  cursed  the  Lord's  anointed.'  David  said  unto  him  : 
'  what  have  I  to  do  with  you,  ye  sons  of  Zeruiah,  that  ye 
should  this  day  be  adversaries  unto  me  ?  Know  ye  that 
not  a  man  shall  be  put  to  death  in  Israel.' "  This  reference 
not  only  indicated  Mr.  Lincoln's  policy,  but  also  his 
humanity,  which  is  evidenced  by  an  incident  I  will  relate. 
One  evening  Mr.  Joshua  F.  Speed,  of  Louisville,  and  I  ac- 
companied Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  to  spend  the 
night  with  him.  While  we  were  at  tea,  it  was  announced 
that  a  delegation  were  in  the  anteroom.  Mr.  Lincoln  im- 
mediately went  to  see  them  ;  Speed  and  I  remained  at  the 
table.  We  soon  heard  that  the  delegation  were  from  New 
Jersey,  and  that  they  were  importuning  the  President  to 


/.     GILLESPIE.  459 

pardon  some  young  men  from  that  State,  who  had  de- 
serted, were  recaptured  and  sentenced  by  a  court-martial 
to  be  shot,  in  a  few  days.  One  of  the  delegation  was  a 
brother  to  one  who  was  under  sentence,  and  he  appealed 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  with  terrible  earnestness.  The  President 
combated  his  views  with  invincible  arguments.  He 
pointed  out  that  it  would  be  disastrous  to  the  cause  if 
he  should  pardon  men  who  had  deserted  their  colors, 
while  the  armies  were  confronting  each  other ;  he  had  no 
right  under  such  circumstances  to  expect  the  men  who 
had  remained  in  the  ranks  to  do  their  duty.  My  heart 
almost  sank  within  me  when  Mr.  Lincoln  dismissed  them, 
saying  that  he  would  give  them  a  definite  answer  at  the 
White  House  at  nine  o'clock  the  next  morning.  Speed 
and  I,  after  tea,  had  come  into  the  room  and  listened  to 
the  discussion,  after  the  delegation  left.  I  was  much 
afraid  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  made  up  his  ^mind  not  to 
pardon  the  young  men.  Speed,  who  I  know  had  more 
influence  with  the  President  than  any  living  being,  sug- 
gested that  we  should  tackle  him  and  beg  for  the  boys, 
which  we  did  in  good  earnest.  We  plied  him  with  all  the 
reasons  we  could  muster,  and  still  I  was  afraid  we  were 
not  gaining  ground.  When  it  came  to  be  time  to  retire,  I 
said  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  I  did  not  think  I  could  sleep 
unless  I  knew  that  he  was  going  to  pardon  the  boys.  He 
said:  "  Gillespie,  I  can't  tell  you."  "Well,"  said  I,  "you 
can  give  me  an  inkling."  Said  he,  "  All  I  qan  say  is  that  I 
have  always  found  that  mercy  bears  richer  fruits  than  strict 
justice"  In  the  morning  the  delegation  were  ahead  of 
time  and  they  were  rejoiced  beyond  measure  to  receive 
the  pardon  for  their  friends.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  very 


46o  /.     GILLESPIE. 

humane  man,  but  at  the  same  time  he  was  wonderfully 
just  and  firm.  If  it  was  possible  for  him  to  exercise 
clemency  without  doing  wrong,  he  would  do  so.  He  told 
me,  one  evening,  that  since  he  saw  me  in  the  morning, 
he  had  received  some  distressing  intelligence.  He  had 
been  notified  by  Ould,  Commissioner  (I  think  he  called 
him)  for  Exchange  in  the  rebel  army,  that  a  large  number 
of  prisoners  captured  and  paroled  at  Vicksburg  had  been 
put  into  the  field.  I  said  I  did  not  perceive  why  that 
should  distress  him  ;  that  it  only  amounted  to  our  having 
a  few  more  to  fight.  "  Ah,"  said  he,  "  look  at  it  in  this 
light ;  these  men  are  liable  to  be  shot  when  captured 
unless  I  prohibit  it,  and  the  responsibility  rests  on  me  to 
say  whether  the  laws  of  war  shall  be  carried  out,  in  the 
case  of  those  men,  or  suspended.  What  would  you  do  if  in 
my  place  ? "  said  he.  I  said  :  "  It  is  too  big  a  question  for 
me,"  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  it  is  a  momentous  question,  and 
must  be  decided  at  once,  and  I  have  about  made  up  my 
mind  that  those  men  have  been  forced  into  the  field,  and 
that  it  would  be  unmerciful  to  have  them  shot."  As  a  boon 
companion,  Mr.  Lincoln,  although  he  never  drank  a  drop 
of  liquor,  or  used  tobacco  in  any  form,  in  his  life,  was 
without  a  rival.  No  one  would  ever  think  of  putting  in 
while  he  was  talking.  He  could  illustrate  any  incident, 
it  seemed  to  me,  with  an  appropriate  and  amusing  anec- 
dote. He  did  not  tell  stories  just  for  the  sake  of  telling 
them,  but  invariably  by  way  of  illustration  of  something 
that  had  happened  or  been  said.  There  seemed  to  be  no 
end  to  his  fund.  I  could  relate  hundreds  of  his  stories, 
but  time  and  space  forbid  it.  I  will  give  a  circumstance 
showing  his  power  to  amuse.  In  1842  (I  think),  after 


/.     GILLESPIE.  461 

Mr.  Van  Buren's  defeat,  he  and  Mr.  Paulding  took  an 
excursion  through  the  West ;  they  informed  their  friends 
that  they  would  reach  Springfield,  111.,  by  a  certain 
evening.  The  Springfield  people  knew  that  the  bad  state 
of  the  roads  would  prevent  them  getting  further  than 
Rochester,  about  seven  miles  from  Springfield,  that  day; 
and  as  accommodations  at  the  place  were  horrible,  Mr. 
Van  Buren's  friends  concluded  to  meet  him  there  with  re- 
freshments and  make  the  night  pass  off  as  pleasantly  as 
circumstances  would  permit.  Mr.  Lincoln,  although  a 
Whig,  was  pressed  into  the  service,  and  was  told  to  use 
his  best  endeavors  to  entertain  the  distinguished  guests, 
in  which  he  succeeded  admirably.  Ebenezer  Peck,  a  great 
admirer  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  told  me  he  had  never  passed 
a  more  joyous  night.  "  Lincoln  told  his  queerest  stories ; 
Van  Buren's  laugh  was  ready  chorus."  Mr.  Van  Buren 
said  that  for  days  after  his  sides  were  sore  from  laughing 
at  Lincoln's  humor.  Physically,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a 
Hercules.  I  first  saw  him  in  1832,  while  he  was  engaged 
in  a  wrestling-match  with  one  Dan  Thompson,  who  was 
the  champion,  in  that  line,  of  the  southern  portion  of 
Illinois,  while  Lincoln  occupied  that  position  as  to  what 
was  then  the  northern  portion.  It  was  a  terrible  tussle, 
but  Lincoln  was  too  much  for  him.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a 
very  indulgent  husband  and  father ;  while  at  Springfield, 
his  children  were  constantly  with  him,  romping  and  play- 
ing. The  truth  is,  his  affection  was  so  strong  that  he 
had  but  little  government  over  them,  and  it  was  painful 
to  see  him  when  allusion  was  made  to  the  death  of  his 
son  Willie.  As  a  lawyer  he  was  peculiar,  and  never 
gave  an  opinion  until  he  had  reflected  upon  the  case.  He 


462  /.     GILL  ESP  IE. 

went  into  court  with  his  subject  thoroughly  analyzed,  and 
would  discard  every  doubtful  point  and  concentrate  all  of 
his  powers  upon  the  tap-root  of  his  case.  Analysis  and 
concentration  were  the  characteristics  of  his  mind.  He 
had  no  ceremony  in  his  temper,  and  treated  every  one 
with  the  utmost  consideration  and  respect.  Mr.  Lincoln 
cared  nothing  about  money-making,  and  had  no  concep- 
tion of  a  speculation.  He  said  he  had  no  money  sense. 
He  had  a  realizing  sense  that  he  was  generally  set  down 
by  city  snobs  as  a  country  Jake,  and  would  accept,  in  a 
public-house,  any  place  assigned  to  him,  whether  in  the 
basement  or  the  attic,  and  he  seldom  called  at  the  table 
for  anything,  but  helped  himself  to  what  was  within 
reach.  Indeed,  he  never  knew  what  he  did  eat.  He  said 
to  me  once  that  he  never  felt  his  own  utter  unworthi- 
ness  so  much  as  when  in  the  presence  of  a  hotel  clerk  or 
waiter.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  very  tender-hearted.  I  called 
at  the  White  House  and  was  detained  a  considerable  time 
in  the  anteroom,  which  was  filled  with  persons  waiting 
their  turn  to  be  admitted  to  the.  President.  While  there, 
I  met  with  an  old  lady  who  said  she  had  been  several 
days  waiting  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln ;  that  she  wanted  to  get 
permission  to  see  her  son,  who  was  a  soldier  lying  at  the 
point  of  death  ;  that  she  was  unable  to  obtain  permission 
from  the  Secretary  of  War.  I  told  her  that  if  I  gained 
admittance  before  she  did,  I  would  speak  to  the  Pres- 
ident about  her  case.  She  said  she  had  been  told  that  he 
was  a  very  kind-hearted  man.  Just  about  this  time,  Mr. 
Lincoln's  barber,  whom  I  had  known  in  Springfield, 
Illinois,  came  out  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  room  and,  seeing  me, 
offered  to  take  me  in  by  a  private  door,  which  I  accepted. 


/.     GILLESPIE.  463 

While  shaking  hands  with  the  President,  I  mentioned  the 

o 

case  of  the  old  lady,  and  he  remarked  that  his  greatest 
Tribulation  consisted  in  the  fact  that  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  give  prompt  attention  to  such  cases,  but  he  directed 
the  old  lady  to  be  shown  in,  and  without  hesitation, 
granted  her  request.  He  saw  in  an  instant  that  she  was 
honest.  I  have  heard  Joshua  F.  Speed,  of  Louisville,  re- 
late an  incident  illustrative  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  character, 
which  redounded  to  the  advantage  of  the  country.  It 
was  at  a  time  when  the  want  of  money  was  paralyzing 
the  Government.  Stewart  and  Astor  and  other  capital- 
ists had  assembled  to  consider  whether  they  would 
advance  funds  to  meet  the  pressing  necessities  of  the 
case.  While  those  men  were  conferring  with  the  Pres- 
ident on  the  momentous  question,  an  old  gentleman  and 
lady  made  their  appearance,  who  turned  out  to  be  very 
particular  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  broke  up  the  con- 
ference with  the  capitalists,  to  greet,  in  his  most  cordial 
manner,  his  old  friends.  The  effect  upon  Messrs. 
Stewart,  Astor  and  others  was  electrical.  They  declared 
that  they  would  have  no  hesitation  to  aid  a  Government 
at  the  head  of  which  was  a  man  so  true  to  his  old 
friends. 


EDWARDSVILLE,  1882, 


464 


S.     S.     COX— THOMAS    CHASE. 


HIS  sense  of  humor  was  as  logical  as  his  mind  was 
clear  and  his  heart  generous.  I  knew  him  well 
before  he  was  Chief  Executive,  and  he  was  the  best 
companion  ;  bigger  by  far  in  the  noblest  sense  of  courtesy 
and  heartiness  than  any  man  I  ever  knew,  except  his  great 
rival,  Judge  Douglas. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


A  MAN  of  a  style  of  greatness  which  is  the  best 
product  of  free  institutions,  and  of  them  alone  ;  a 
man  whose  glory  it  was  that  his  chief  desire  was  to  do 
the  right,  and  to  promote  the  right ;  whose  watchword 
was  Duty ;  and  whose  warmest  aspiration  the  removal  of 
all  weights  and  hindrances  which  hold  men  back  from 
their  highest  social,  intellectual  and  religious  develop- 
ment. 


1880. 


CAVALRY  GROUP  OF  STATUARY.     NATIONAL  LINCOLN  MONT7MKNT. 

Representing  the  rearing  figure  of  ahorse,  from  whose  Lack  his  rider  hat  just  l>euii  thrown, 
ana  the  wounded  trumpeter,  who  is  supported  by  a  companion. 


/.     G.     HOLLAND— AN  SON    G.     M'COOK.         465 


WHEN  I  began,  a  few  weeks  after  his  death,  to 
write  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  I  entertained 
a  profound  respect  for  his  strong  mind,  his  tender  heart, 
and  the  memory  of  his  beneficent  life.  When  I  wrote 
the  last  page  of  the  book,  I  had  become  his  affectionate 
admirer  and  enthusiastic  partisan, 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


HIS  services  were  of  such  inestimable  value  to  the 
republic,    and    his    life   so    identified   with    the 
struggle  to  maintain  it,  that  no  ordinary  volume  would 
be  sufficient  to  more  than  touch  upon  them. 


WASHINGTON,  1880. 

80 


466 


H.     W.     LONGFELLOW. 


T  NABLE  to  do  more  than  wish  the  undertaking 
great  success. 


o/vN-vxi  r 


S 


CAMBRIDGE,  MARCH  13,  1882. 


M.    R.     WAITE.  467 


I  HAVE  always  thought  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  man  born 
for  his  time.  He  was  a  leader  without  seeming  to 
be.  He,  more  than  any  other  man  during  his  presidency, 
stood  at  the  helm  of  State.  Through  his  skill,  which 
was  only  the  best  of  common  sense,  we  were  taken  by 
the  only  channel  that  led  from  secession  to  the  true 
dictum  of  "an  indestructible  Union,  composed  of  in- 
destructible States."  He  died  as  he  lived,  a  great  states- 
man, who  knew  enough  of  the  ways  of  politics  to  make 
his  statesmanship  practically  useful. 


468  JESSE     W.     FELL. 


IF  there  was  any  one  trait  in  the  make-up  of  that  illus- 
trious man  that  stood  out  more  conspicuously  than 
any  other,  it  was,  to  use  a  favorite  word  of  his,  his  fairness 
—his  habitual,  ever-recurring  sense  of  justice.     As  an  illus- 
tration of  this,  I  offerforthe  LINCOLN  MEMORIAL  ALBUM 
a  few  recollections  of  his  bearing  towards  his  great  politi- 
cal rival,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  :  for  great  he,  too,  truly  was, 
as  a  popular  and  sensational  debater  and  political  man- 
ager, to  say  nothing  of  his  acknowledged  ability  in  other 
directions. 

The  passage  of  the  Kansas- Nebraska  Bill — of  which  he 
was  the  admitted  champion — in  the  spring  of  1854,  in  open 
violation  of  both  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise Act  of  1820,  throwing  out  that  immense  district  of 
country  covered  by  these  Territories — now  States — to 
the  baneful  institution  of  human  slavery,  was  claimed  to 
be  a  manifest  breach  of  national  good  faith  ;  and  so  re- 
pugnant was  it  to  the  sentiment  of  the  Northern  people, 
that  it  roused  up  a  storm  of  popular  indignation  all  over 
the  North,  unequaled  in  the  previous  history  of  the  coun- 
try. In  no  part  of  that  country,  Kansas  alone  excepted, 
did  that  excitement  run  higher  than  here  in  Illinois  ;  as  an 
evidence  of  which,  about  that  time,  or  soon  after,  scores 
of  law-abiding  men  armed  themselves  with  Sharpe's 
rifles,  and  fled  from  our  midst  to  the  plains  of  "  Bleeding 
Kansas" — then  so-called — whilst  many  others  contributed 
freely  of  their  means  to  accomplish  a  common  object, 


JESSE     W.     FELL.  469 

to  wit,  make  Kansas  a  free  State ;  the  battle-ground 
being  almost  wholly  confined  to  that  State. 

Senator  Douglas,  having  not  only  introduced  and 
voted  for  that  Bill,  but  making  the  leading  speech  in  its 
support,  was  the  object  of  special  hostility  and  criticism 
here  and  everywhere.  He  labored  to  justify  the  act  on 
the  ground  of  what  he  denominated  "  popular  sovereign- 
ty "-  —plausibly  contending  it  was  equally  fair  to  both 
sections  of  the  Union  ;  and  that,  as  the  free  State  men 
were  not  only  more  numerous,  but  more  active  in  their 
movements  than  the  Southern  people,  they  would  take 
possession  of  and  organize  into  free  States  both  of  these 
Territories  ;  a  view,  the  correctness  of  which — in  the  lat- 
ter regard — was  vindicated  by  subsequent  history,  though 
not  till  a  series  of  outrages  had  been  perpetrated,  unpar- 
alleled in  the  history  of  popular  governments.  The  oppo- 
sition contended  that,  as  that  Territory  had  in  the  most 
solemn  manner,  and  as  a  peace-offering  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union,  been  dedicated  to  freedom,  when  Mis- 
souri was  admitted  into  the  Union,  the  passage  of  the  Bill 
exhibited  an  unmanly,  servile  pandering  to  the  sjave 
power  of  the  South,  that  up  to  that  time,  and  for  many 
years  preceding,  had  dominated  all  legislation  on  the 
slavery  question,  and  in  various  ways  been  very  aggres- 
sive on  the  rights  of  Northern  people.  The  result  was 
an  intensely  bitter  political  excitement ;  so  bitter  as  to 
not  only  mar,  but  almost  to  destroy  social  enjoyment  be- 
tween ordinary  politicians  holding  adverse  opinions  on 
this  subject. 

These  two  men  were  the  Magnus  Apollos  of  their  re- 
spective parties ;  for  although  the  Republican  party  had 


470  JESSE     W.     FELL. 

not  then  been  fully  crystallized  into  a  political  organiza- 
tion, it  was  in  a  process  of  formation,  and  Lincoln  was 
everywhere  in  Illinois  our  admitted  standard-bearer. 

Notwithstanding  the  high  party-excitement  referred 
to,  his  love  of  fair  play  shone  out  most  conspicuously. 
Judge  Douglas,  fully  apprised  of  the  state  of  public  feel- 
ing, had  given  out  that  on  his  return  from  Washington 
he  would  address  the  people  on  the  exciting  topic  of  the 
times,  and  in  pursuance  thereof  a  Democratic  meeting 
was  called  at  Bloomington  on  the  iQth  day  of  September, 
1854.  After  conferring  with  our  Anti-Nebraska  friends — 
as  we  were  then  commonly  called — I  opened  a  correspon- 
dence with  Mr.  Lincoln,  resulting  in  his  coming  to 
Bloomington  on  that  day,  in  order  to  take  notes  and 
reply  to  Mr.  Douglas,  if  the  way  opened,  on  the  same 
day,  and  if  not,  in  the  evening.  This  fact  became  pretty 
widely  known,  and  a  very  large  meeting,  composed  of 
quite  as  many  Anti-Nebraska  men  as  Democrats,  met  in 
the  grove  near  town — no  hall  we  then  had  being  sufficient 
to  hold  the  crowd.  In  order  that  the  country  people 
should  have  the  benefit  of  the  discussion,  there  was  a 
universal  desire,  on  the  part  of  our  friends,  that  Lincoln 
as  well  as  Douglas  should  be  heard  in  the  day-time,  and 
I  had  been  requested  to  see  Lincoln  on  his  arrival  and 
get  his  approval  that  we  propose  to,  and  urge  upon  the 
Judge  to  divide  time,  so  as  to  have  a  joint  discussion. 

With  what  little  ability  I  could  command,  I  did  so, 
emphasizing  the  fact  that  a  large  majority  of  those  we 
most  desired  to  reach  could  not  be  heard  unless  this 
arrangement  was  made  ;  and  that  in  the  absence  of  such 
an  agreement  it  would  be  quite  difficult  to  restrain  within 


JESSE     W.     FELL.  471 

bounds  the  clamor  of  the  people  to  hear  him.  I  shall 
never  forget  his  very  prompt  and  decisive  reply,  which 
was  substantially  this  :  "  Fell,  this  is  not  our  meeting  ; 
it  is  Judge  Douglas's  meeting ;  he  called  it,  and  he  and 
his  friends  have  a  right  to  control  it.  Notwithstanding 
all  you  say  about  our  country  people,  and  the  great  desire 
I  have  to  talk  to  them,  we  must  do  nothing  to  defeat  his 
object  in  calling  it.  He  has  heard  of  the  great  racket  the 
passage  of  his  Bill  has  kicked  up,  and  he  wants  to  set 
himself  right  with  his  people,  a  job  not  very  easily  done, 
you  and  I  being  the  judges.  Partly  on  this  ground  and 
partly  to  keep  me  from  speaking,  he  will  no  doubt  con- 
sume so  much  of  the  time  that  I'll  have  no  chance  till 
in  the  evening.  I  fully  appreciate  all  you  say  about  our 
country  friends,  and  would  like  mighty  well  to  talk  to 
them  on  this  subject.  If  Judge  Douglas  will  give  me  a 
chance  I  will  follow  him  out  in  the  grove,  but  as  he  won't 
do  this,  I  guess  you  may  give  it  out,  after  he  is  done, 
that  I  will  reply  to  him  after  candle  lighting  in  the  court- 
house." 

This  speech  settled  the  matter.  I  will  only  add,  in 
conclusion,  our  Anti-Nebraska  friends  were  greatly  dis- 
appointed at  not  getting  his  approval  of  some  pretty 
active  (perhaps  I  should  say  aggressive)  demonstrations, 
to  secure  a  division  of  time  in  the  discussion  ;  that,  as  we 
anticipated,  the  afternoon  was  consumed  by  the  Judge  ; 
that  so  intense  was  the  desire  to  hear  Lincoln  in  the  day- 
time, it  was  found  quite  difficult  to  repress  a  perfect 
avalanche  of  popular  calls  for  our  hero  to  be  heard  ;  and 
that,  in  the  evening,  he  held  forth  at  the  old  court-house 
to  all  that  could  get  in  it,  or  within  hearing  distance,  in  a 


472  JESSE     W.     FELL. 

most  logical,  eloquent  and  inspiring  speech  on  the  dis- 
turbed and  perturbed  condition  of  the  country,  and  the 
consequent  duties  we  owed  to  that  country,  and  to  a 
common  humanity,  in  resisting,  to  the  bitter  end,  this  last 
aggression  on  Northern  rights.  In  power  and  pathos, 
mingled  with  the  playful  and  humorous,  he  seldom,  if 
ever,  acquitted  himself  more  grandly. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  say  that  before  speaking  com- 
menced I  called  on  Judge  Douglas,  who,  as  we  had  antici- 
pated, politely  declined  the  proffered  debate ;  in  do:ng 
which  he  made  some  amusing,  though  good-natured, 
remarks  about  the  uncertain  character  of  our  party, 
which  in  truth  was,  at  that  time,  far  from  being  of  a  very 
compact  or  coherent  order,  either  in  name  or  creed. 

I  repeat,  it  was  Lincoln's  love  of  justice,  his  habitual, 
ever-active  sense  of  right,  and  the  practice  of  it,  that 
made  him  so  strong  with  the  people  ;  and  such  I  know  is 
the  opinion  of  him  whose  name,  more  than  any  other,  is 
linked  with  his;  I  mean  Judge  David  Davis,  with  whom 
he  spent  so  much  of  his  life,  here  in  Illinois,  as  a  practic- 
ing attorney  around  our  old  judicial  circuit. 

In  the  fall  of  1858,  during  the  discussion  between 
Senator  Douglas  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  had  occasion  to 
visit  the  Middle  and  Eastern  States ;  and  as  the  whole 
country  was  then  agitated  by  the  slavery  question  and 
that  discussion  cut  a  prominent  figure  in  the  agitation, 
I  was  frequently  applied  to  for  information  in  reference 
to  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  felt  my  State  pride  flattered  by  these 
inquiries,  and  still  more  to  find  the  New  York  Tribune, 
and  other  papers,  publishing  copious  extracts  from  these 
discussions,  taken  from  the  Chicago  press.  I  did  what 


JESSE     W.     FELL.  473 

little  I  could  to  satisfy  so  laudable  a  curiosity,  not  think- 
ing, at  first,  that  anything  further  would  come  of  this 
discussion,  in  reference  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  than  his  election 
to  the  Senate.  At  length,  from  the  frequency  of  these 
inquiries  and  public  notices  of  the  Illinois  contest,  an 
impression  began  to  form,  that  by  judicious  efforts  he 
could  be  made  the  Republican  candidate  for  presidency 
in  1860.  Very  soon  after  my  return  home,  and  after  the 
senatorial  contest  had  closed,  one  evening,  as  I  passed 
on  the  south  side  of  the  public  square  of  this  city,  I 
espied  the  tall  form  of  Mr.  Lincoln  emerging  from  the 
court-house  door,  Judge  Davis's  court  then  being  in 
session.  I  stopped  until  he  came  across  the  street,  when, 
after  the  .usual  salutations,  I  asked  him  to  go  with  me 
into  my  brother's  (K.  N.  Fell)  law-office,  then  kept  over 
what  is  now  the  Home  Bank.  There  we  sat  down,  and 
in  the  calm  twilight  of  the  evening,  had  substantially  the 
following  conversation  : — FELL. — "  Lincoln,  I  have  been 
East,  as  far  as  Boston,  and  up  into  New  Hampshire, 
traveling  in  all  the  New  England  States,  save  Maine  : 
in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Michigan 
and  Indiana ;  and  everywhere  I  hear  you  talked  about. 
Very  frequently  I  have  been  asked :  '  Who  is  this  man 
Lincoln,  of  your  State,  now  canvassing  in  opposition  to 
'Senator  Douglas  ?'  Being,  as  you  know,  an  ardent 
Republican  and  your  friend,  I  usually  told  them  we  had 
in  Illinois  two  giants  instead  of  one ;  that  Douglas  was 
the  little  one,  as  they  all  knew,  but  that  you  were  the  big 
one,  which  they  didn't  all  know. 

"  But,  seriously,  Lincoln,  Judge  Douglas  being  so  wide- 
ly known,  you  are  getting  a  national  reputation  through 


474  JESSE     W.     FELL. 

him,  as  the  result  of  the  late  discussion ;  your  speeches, 
in  whole  or  in  part,  on  both  sides,  have  been  pretty 
extensively  published  in  the  East ;  you  are  there  regarded 
by  discriminating  minds  as  quite  a  match  for  him  in 
debate,  and  the  truth  is,  I  have  a  decided  impression 
that  if  your  popular  history  and  efforts  on  the  slavery 
question  can  be  sufficiently  brought  before  the  people, 
you  can  be  made  a  formidable,  if  not  a  successful, 
candidate  for  the  presidency." 

LINCOLN. — "  Oh,  Fell,  what's  the  use  of  talking  of  me 
for  the  presidency,  whilst  we  have  such  men  as  Seward, 
Chase  and  others,  who  are  so  much  better  known  to  the 
people,  and  whose  names  are  so  intimately  associated 
with  the  principles  of  the  Republican  party.  Everybody 
knows  them  ;  nobody,  scarcely,  outside  of  Illinois,  knows 
me.  Besides,  is  it  not,  as  a  matter  of  justice,  due  to 
such  men,  who  have  carried  this  movement  forward  to  its 
present  status,  in  spite  of  fearful  opposition,  personal 
abuse,  and  hard  names  ?  I  really  think  so." 

FELL. — "  There  is  much  truth  in  what  you  say.     The 
men  you  allude  to,  occupying  more  prominent  positions, 
have  undoubtedly  rendered  a  larger  service  in  the  Re- 
publican cause  than  you  have  ;  but  the  truth  is,  they  have 
rendered  too   much  service  to   be   available   candidates. 
Placing  it  on  the  grounds  of  personal  services,  or  merit, ' 
if  you  please,  I  concede  at  once  the  superiority  of  their 
claims.     Personal  services  and  merit,  however,  when  in- 
compatible with  the    public   good,  must   be   laid  aside 
Seward  and  Chase  have  both  made  long  records  on  th« 
slavery  question,  and  have  said  some  very  radical  things 
which,  however  just  and  true  in  themselves,  and  howevei 


IV.     FELL.  475 

much  these  men  may  challenge  our  admiration  for  their 
courage  and  devotion  to  unpopular  truths,  would  seriously 
damage  them  in  the  contest,  if  nominated.  We  must 
bear  in  mind,  Lincoln,  that  we  are  yet  in  a  minority ;  we 
are  struggling  against  fearful  odds  for  supremacy.  We 
were  defeated  on  this  same  issue  in  1856,  and  will  be 
again  in  1860,  unless  we  get  a  great  many  new  votes  from 
what  may  be  called  the  old  conservative  parties.  These 
will  be  repelled  by  the  radical  utterances  and  votes  of 
such  men  as  Seward  and  Chase.  What  the  Republican 
party  wants,  to  insure  success,  in  1860,  is  a  man  of 
popular  origin,  of  acknowledged  ability,  committed 
against  slavery  aggressions,  who  has  no  record  to  defend 
and  no  radicalism  of  an  offensive  character  to  repel  votes 
from  parties  hitherto  •  adverse.  Your  discussion  with 
Judge  Douglas  has  demonstrated  your  ability  and  your 
devotion  to  freedom  ;  you  have  no  embarrassing  record  ; 
you  have  sprung  from  the  humble  walks  of  life,  sharing 
in  its  toils  and  trials ;  and  if  we  can  only  get  these  facts 
sufficiently  before  the  people,  depend  upon  it,  there  is 
some  chance  for  you.  And  now,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  come  to 
the  business  part  of  this  interview.  My  native  State, 
Pennsylvania,  will  have  a  large  number  of  votes  to  cast 
for  somebody  on  the  question  we  have  been  discussing. 
Pennsylvania  don't  like,  over  much,  New  York  and  her 
politicians.  She  has  a  candidate,  Cameron,  of  her  own ; 
but  he  will  not  be  acceptable  to  a  larger  part  of  her  own 
people,  much  less  abroad,  and  will  be  dropped.  Through 
an  eminent  jurist  and  essayist  of  my  native  county  in 
Pennsylvania,  favorably  known  throughout  the  State,  I 
want  to  get  up  a  well-considered,  well-written  newspaper 


476  JESSE     W.     FELL. 

article  tellmg  the  people  who  you  are  and  what  you 
have  done,  that  it  may  be  circulated,  not  ^>nly  in  that 
State,  but  elsewhere,  and  thus  help  in  manufacturing 
sentiment  in  your  favor.  I  know  your  public  life,  and 
can  furnish  items  that  your  modesty  would  forbid,  but  I 
don't  know  much  about  your  private  history :  when  you 
were  born,  and  where,  the  names  and  origin  of  your 
parents,  what  you  did  in  early  life,  what  your  oppor- 
tunities for  education,  etc.,  and  I  want  you  to  give  me 
these.  Won't  you  do  it  ?" 

LINCOLN. — "  Fell,  I  admit  the  force  of  much  that  you 
say,  and  admit  that  I  am  ambitious,  and  would  like  to  be 
President.  I  am  not  insensible  to  the  compliment  you 
pay  me,  and  the  interest  you  manifest  in  the  matter;  but 
there  is  no  suck  good  luck  in  store  for  me  as  tke  presidency 
of  these  United  States ;  besides,  there  is  nothing  in  my 
early  history  that  would  interest  you  or  anybody  else  ;  and, 
as  Judge  Davis  says,  '//  wont  pay'  Good  night." 

And  thus  ended,  for  the  time  being,  my  pet  scheme 
of  helping  to  make  Lincoln  President.  I  notified  him, 
however,  as  his  giant  form,  wrapped  in  a  dilapidated 
shawl,  disappeared  in  the  darkness,  that  this  was  not  the 
last  of  it;  that  \htfacts  must  come.  The  next  year,  1859, 
I  was  engaged  much  of  the  time  as  the  corresponding 
secretary  of  the  Republican  State  Central  Committee,  in 
traveling  over  the  State  and  in  carrying  out  plans  for  a 
more  thorough  organization  of  the  Republican  party, 
preparatory  to  the  great  contest  of  1860.  I  visited  per- 
sonally a  largo  majority  of  the  counties  in  the  State,  and 
nearly  everywhere  had  the  satisfaction  of  learning  that, 
though  many  doubted  the  possibility  of  nominating 


JESSE     W.     FELL.  477 

Lincoln,  most  generally  it  was  approved  of.  This  fact 
became  in  time  very  apparent  to  Lincoln  himself,  whom 
I  not  infrequently  met  in  my  travels ;  and  in  the  month 
of  December  of  that  year,  feeling  that  perhaps  it  would 
"  pay,"  I  induced  him  to  place  in  my  hands  this  emi- 
nently characteristic  paper.  Such  is  the  history  of  a 
paper  that  has  already  become  historic,  and  which,  to  me 
at  least,  has  a  value  I  little  dreamed  of  at  the  time. 

"SPRINGFIELD,  Dec.  20,  1859. 
"J.  W.  FELL,  Esq. 

"Mv  DEAR  SIR: 

"Herewith  is 'a  little  sketch,  as  you  re- 
quested. There  is  not  much  of  it,  for  the  reason,  I 
suppose,  that  there  is  not  much  of  me.  If  anything  be 
made  out  of  it,  I  wish  it  to  be  modest,  and  not  to  go 
beyond  the  materials.  If  it  was  thought  necessary  to 
incorporate  anything  from  any  of  my  speeches,  I  suppose 
there  would  be  no  objections.  Of  course,  it  must  not 
appear  to  have  been  written  by  myself. 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

"NORMAL,  ILLINOIS,  March  9,  1882. 
"  OSBORN  H.  OLDROYD,  Springfield,  111. 
"  MY  DEAR  SIR  : 

"  It  is  with  much  pleasure  that  I  have 
learned  of  your  purpose  to  erect  at  Springfield,  Illinois, 
a  "  Memorial  Hall,"  in  which  is  to  be  stored  whatever  is 
interesting  as  connected  with,  or  illustrating  the  life  and 
character  of  that  most  remarkable  man  and  patriot, 


47  8  JESSE     W.     FELL. 

Abraham  Lincoln.  In  answer  to  your  polite  request  for 
the  original  manuscript  of  what  is  known  as  the  "  Auto- 
biography of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  I  herewith  present  you 
that  paper,  to  be  placed  in  your  large  and  valuable 
collection  of  memorials  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Not  doubting 
your  great  success  in  so  patriotic  an  undertaking,  I  am, 
with  sincere  respect, 

"  Yours  truly, 


NORMAL,  1882. 


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VIRGINIA     A.     FRAZER.  483 


1861  —  1865. 

THE  cry  for  "  Freedom  "  or  for  "  Death  "  resounds, 
From  frozen  lake  to  Mississippi's  mouth 
The  rugged  mind  of  Lincoln  guides  the  North, 
The  gray-eyed  eagle  Davis  leads  the  South. 

On  !  on  !  they  come  !  the  while  the  scythe  of  gray 
Sweeps  low  the  lines  of  blue,  like  autumn  leaves  ; 

The  eager  mouths  of  earth  quaff  deep  of  gore ; 
The  granaries  of  Death  heap  high  with  sheaves. 

§>teel  clashes  steel  !  and  now  the  twofold  cry 
Bursts  from  the  stern  lips  of  the  nation's  head, 

The  patriot's  cry  for  "  Union,"  "  Freedom  "  rings 
Through  all  the  land,  and  echoes  mid  the  dead. 

And  patriotism  swells  the  surging  tide, 

With  mighty  hosts  unnumbered  as  the  stars — 

"  One  country"  stirs  the  patriot  of  the  North, 
And  nerves  his  sinews  for  the  "  War  of  Wars  !" 

On  !  on  !  and  now  the  banners  of  the  South 
Bend  low  to  meet  the  kiss  the  dying  give  ; 
The  South  yields  to  the  hosts — her  cause  is  lost — 

Yet,  though  subdued,  her  Truth  and  Honor  lives! 

• 

Now  Lincoln's  hand  has  caught  the  Union  flag, 
And  firmly  nailed  it  to  the  ship  of  State  ; 

He  stands  to  pilot  her  into  the  port — 
To  sternly  meet  the  stern  decree  of  fate. 

And  now — a  horror  falls  upon  the  land, 
The  pulses  of  the  North  beat  wild  and  high; 

The  weary  Southland  sees  her  last  hope  fade, 
And,  vfith  the  dream  of  Lincoln,  droop  and  die. 


484 


VIRGINIA     A.     fRAZER. 


'Tis  finished  !  ay  !  the  daring  mission's  filled  ! 

The  grasp  of  Death  rests  on  the  iron  hand 
That  laid  the  Southern  banner  in  its  shroud, 

And  flung  the  "  Stars  and  Stripes"  o'er  all  the  land. 


/ 


MEMPHIS,  1882. 


C.     C.     CARPENTER  485 


I  HAVE  been  more  deeply  interested  in  the  life  and 
character  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  have  admired 
him  more  unreservedly,  than  any  other  American,  living  or 
dead.  I  have  read  all  the  biographies  of  which  I  have 
any  knowledge,  and  not  one  of  them,  or  all  of  them,  have 
given  me  the  high  estimate  of  his  character  which  was 
indicated  in  the  unreserved  confidence  and  generous  love 
with  which  he  was  regarded  by  all  his  contemporaries,  and 
especially  by  those  who  came  in  personal  contact  with 
him  and  knew  him  best. 


FORT  DODGE,  1882. 


486  Z.     EASTMAN. 


ENGLISH  SYMPATHY  FOR  MR.  LINCOLN. 

THE  hatred  of  aristocratic  England  of  the  American 
Union  in  the  time  of  the  rebellion  almost  made 
anti-slavery  England  pro-slavery.  The  anti-slavery 
society  of  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce  were  alarmed  at  the 
revulsion  of  principle,  and  issued  an  address  to  the 
people.  They  sent  a  copy  of  that  address  to  President 
Lincoln,  with  the  following  letter : 


"  SIR: — It  has  seemed  desirable  to  the  Committee  of  the 
BRITISH  AND  FOREIGN  ANTI-SLAVERY  SOCIETY,  to  issue,  at 
the  present  crisis,  an  Address  to  the  friends  of  the  Anti- 
Slaver}*  cause,  of  which  a  copy  is  annexed. 

'•  In  directing  your  attention  to  it,  the  Committee 
would  take  advantage  of  the  opportunity,  to  assure  you 
of  their  personal  respect  and  sympathy,  and  of  their  ap- 
preciation of  the  exceeding  great  difficulties  of  your 
position.  Since  your  accession  to  office,  they  have 
watched,  with  deep  interest,  the  progress  of  events,  and 
especially  the  gradual  development  of  a  policy  tending 
to  promote  Negro  Emancipation.  If  certain  measures  in 
furtherance  of  that  policy,  and  some  apparently  incon- 
sistent with  it,  have  not  recommended  themselves  to  the 
approval  of  the  Committee,  they  have,  nevertheless, 
recognized  the  majority  of  them  with  satisfaction,  as  con- 


Z.     EASTMAN.  487 

ducive,  in  the  main,  to  the  interests  of  the  enslaved  portion 
of  the  African  race. 

The  Committee  earnestly  desire,  that  the  sanguinary 
conflict  between  the  two  sections  of  the  Union  may 
speedily  cease,  and  that  with  the  removal  of  the  sole 
cause  of  this  strife,  a  way  may  open  for  a  reconciliation, 
upon  the  enduring  basis  of  a  community  of  interests,  and 
a  mutual  forgiveness  of  injuries. 

"  On  behalf  of  the  Committee, 
"  (Signed)         THOMAS  BINNS,  Chairman. 

"  L.   A.  CHAMEROVZOW,  Secretary. 
27  New  Broad  Street,  E.C. 
London,  i;th  November,  1862." 


MR.  LINCOLN'S   EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION   IN   ENG- 
LAND. 

When  it  had  been  learned  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been 
elected  for  a  second  term  for  the  presidency,  a  larg^ 
public  meeting  was  called-  in  Bristol,  England,  to  con- 
gratulate him  on  his  re-election,  and  the  meeting  was 
broken  up  by  a  mob.  Afterwards  the  following  address 
was  prepared  and  signed  by  a  number  of  prominent 
persons,  representing  the  friends  of  the  American  Union. 
A  few  weeks  later  another  public  meeting  was  held  in 
the  same  hall,  and  presided  over  officially  by  the  Mayor 
of  the  city,  to  express  their  abhorrence  of  the  assassina 
tion  of  our  President  and  condolence  to  the  nation  for 
the  loss  of  so  great  and  good  a  man. 


488  Z.     EASTMAN. 

ADDRESS  TO  HIS  EXCELLENCY  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  ON  HIS 

RE-ELECTION   TO   THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  THE 

UNITED  STATES. 

We,  the  officers  and  members  of  the  Committee  of 
the  Bristol  Emancipation  Society,  in  the  name  of  a 
large  number  of  our  fellow-citizens,  who,  in  meeting 
assembled,  on  several  occasions,  and  invariably  by  a  large 
majority  of  votes,  have  adopted  resolutions  in  agreement 
with  the  tenor  of  this  address,  desire  most  cordially  to 
express  to  your  Excellency  our  congratulations  on  your 
re-election  to  the  presidency  of  the  United  States,  by  the 
popular  vote  of  your  freedom-loving  countrymen. 

We  rejoice  in  this  result,  regarding  it  as  evincing  the 
will  and  design  of  the  American  people  to  sustain  you  in 
the  Anti-Slavery  policy  inaugurated  under  your  adminis- 
tration by  the  Federal  Government,  a  policy  which, 
while  rapidly  making  your  country  as  free  in  fact  as 
it  has  been  heretofore  by  profession,  will  for  the  future 
identify  your  administration  with  the  Liberation  of  the 
Enslaved. 

We  believe  that  in  issuing  your  Emancipation  Pro- 
clamation, freeing  all  persons  held  as  slaves  by  citizens 
who  were  in  arms  against  the  United  States  Government 
after  1863,  and  your  corresponding  recommendation  to 
purchase  for  emancipation  the  slaves  of  loyal  persons  in 
States  not  in  rebellion  ;  and  your  signing  the  law  exclud- 
ing slavery  from  all  the  lands  of  the  United  States  at 
present  under  a  territorial  form  of  government,  together 
with  the  anti-slavery  policy  marking  many  of  your  acts, 


Z.     EASTMAN.  489 

you  have  commended  your  course  to  the  approval  of  all 

TRUE  PHILANTHROPISTS. 

Disclaiming  any  desire  to  mingle  with  the  mere  civil 
and  political  questions  of  the  day,  in  which,  among 
Americans,  there  exists  a  diversity  of  opinion,  we  feel 
that  the  policy  of  your  administration,  to  which  we  have 
referred,  affects  the  great  interests  of  humanity  /  by  it  we 
are  reminded  afresh  of  the  acts  of  our  own  Government 
in  abolishing  the  slave  trade,  and  slavery ;  and  in 
venturing  to  send  to  you  our  congratulations,  we  would 
express  it  as  our  conviction  that  such  deeds,  while  in 
harmony  with  the  highest  laws  of  morality,  tend,  of  their 
own  nature,  to  draw  nearer  to  each  other  the  two  great 
Protestant  nations,  leading  to  their  alliance  and  co-opera- 
tion, and  placing  them  in  a  position  to  influence,  by  their 
united  example,  the  civilized  world. 

In  the  long  struggle  which  has  passed,  and  in  the  con- 
flict which  may  yet  be  continued,  we  see  the  chastisement 
of  a  great  and  erring  people,  for  the  crime  of  slave-hold- 
ing, and  for  the  glaring  departure  from  high  principles 
and  professions ;  and  we  believe  that  whenever  the 
nation  shall  have  purged  away  the  crime  of  slavery, 
Peace  and  Prosperity  will  speedily  be  restored. 

The  address  was  beautifully  engraved  and  illuminated 
on  a  sheet  of  parchment  four  by  five  feet,  and  formally 
presented  through  me,  as  United  States  Consul,  to  the 
President,  who  received  it  but  a  short  time  before  his 
assassination. 


MAYWOOD,  1882. 


490  JAMES    S.     ROLLINS. 


MR.  LINCOLN  was  a  man,  in  my  view,  of  unswerv- 
ing integrity  in  all  his  private  and  public  rela- 
tions ;  his  convictions  upon  all  subjects  that  he  discussed 
were  honest  and  decided,  and  he  followed  them  out ;  he 
was  a  man  of  great  benevolence  of  character ;  there  was 
no  malice  in  his  composition,  but  the  widest  charity  for 
all ;  he  was  devoted  to  the  best  interests  of  the  State  of 
his  adoption,  but  at  the  same  time  he  was  a  devoted 
patriot,  loving  his  whole  country,  and  an  earnest  defender 
of  human  liberty,  and  the  perpetuation  of  the  American 
Union,  which,  if  broken  up,  might  destroy  the  existence  of 
free  institutions  upon  the  American  continent ;  he  had 
no  prejudices  against  the  Southern  people ;  he  was  one 
of  the  best  friends  they  ever  had.  This  is  the  place  that 
will  be  awarded  to  him  in  history  in  after  times.  The 
war  gave  him  deep  distress  ;  there  was  nothing  he  would 
not  have  done,  no  sacrifice  he  would  not  have  made  con- 
sistent with  his  high  sense  of  duty  to  his  country  and  to 
humanity,  if  that  would  have  stopped  the  war,  and  saved 
the  Union  from  dissolution.  In  the  deep  sincerity  of  his 
heart,  I  have  often  heard  him  express  these  sentiments, 
and  all  his  Messages  to  Congress  and  other  similar 
papers,  when  carefully  analyzed,  will  prove  the  correctness 
of  this  estimate  of  him.  These  are  my  impressions 
formed  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  a  pleasant  and  frequent  associa- 
tion with  him  during  the  37th  and  38th  Congresses,  in 
both  of  which  I  was  a  member,  and  which  extended  through 
the  period  of  the  civil  war. 


JAMES    S.     ROLLINS.  49! 

Mr.  Lincoln  often  spoke  to  me  about  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation.  He  had  no  great  faith  in  its  efficacy. 
I  heard  him  say  a  number  of  times  it  only  affected  those 
who  were  free,  z.  e.,  those  behind  the  Federal  lines,  and  of 
course  it  would  not  reach  the  vast  number  of  slaves  who 
remained  within  the  lines  of  the  Southern  army.  This 
made  him  exceedingly  anxious  in  reference  to  the  passage 
of  the  1 3th  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  abolishing  African  Slavery  in  our  country.  This 
amendment  had  failed  to  pass  during  the  session  of  Conr 
gress  of  1863-64,  but  it  was  again  introduced  into  the 
Senate  by  its  author,  the  Hon.  John  B.  Henderson,  of 
Missouri,  and  having  passed  that  body,  was  sent  to  the 
House  of  Representatives  to  be  acted  upon  there.  The 
President  had  several  times  in  my  presence  expressed  his 
deep  anxiety  in  favor  of  the  passage  of  this  great 
measure.  He  and  others  had  repeatedly  counted  votes  in 
order  to  ascertain  as  far  as  they  could  the  strength  of  the 
measure  upon  a  second  trial  in  the  House.  He  was 
doubtful  about  its  passage,  and  some  ten  days  or  two 
weeks  before  it  came  up  for  consideration  in  the  House, 
I  received  a  note  from  him,  written  in  pencil  on  a  card, 
while  sitting  at  my  desk  in  the  House,  stating  he  wished 
to  see  me,  and  asking  that  I  call  on  him  at  the  White 
House.  I  responded  that  I  would  be  there  the  next 
morning  at  nine  o'clock.  I  was  prompt  in  calling  upon  him, 
and  found  him  alone  in  his  office.  He  received  me  in  the 
most  cordial  manner  :  and  said  in  his  usual  familiar  way : 
"  Rollins,  I  have  been  wanting  to  talk  to  you  for  some 
time  about  the  I3th  amendment  proposed  to  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  which  will  have  to  be  voted 


492  JAMES    S.     ROLLINS. 

on  now  before  a  great  while."  I  said  :  "  Well,  I  am  here, 
and  ready  to  talk  upon  that  subject."  He  said  :  ' '  You  and 
I  were  old  Whigs,  both  of  us  followers  of  that  great  states- 
man, Henry  Clay,  and  I  tell  you  I  never  had  an  opinion 
upon  the  subject  of  slavery  in  my  life  that  I  did  not  get 
from  him.  I  am  very  anxious  that  the  war  should  be 
brought  to  a  close,  at  the  earliest  possible  date,  and  I 
don't  believe  this  can  be  accomplished  as  long  as  those 
fellows  down  South  can  rely  upon  the  Border  States  to 
help  them ;  but  if  the  members  from  the  Border  States 
would  unite,  at  least  enough  of  them  to  pass  the  i3th 
amendment  to  the  Constitution,  they  would  soon  see 
they  could  not  expect  much  help  from  that  quarter,  and 
be  willing  to  give  up  their  opposition,  and  quit  their  war 
upon  the  Government  ;  this  is  my  chief  hope  and  main 
reliance,  to  bring  the  war  to  a  speedy  close,  and  I  have 
sent  for  you,  as  an  old  Whig  friend,  to  come  and  see  me, 
that  I  might  make  an  appeal  to  you  to  vote  for  this 
amendment.  It  is  going  to  be  very  close ;  a  few  votes 
one  way  or  the  other  will  decide  it."  To  this  I  re- 
sponded, "  Mr.  President,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned  you 
need  not  have  sent  for  me  to  ascertain  my  views  on  this 
subject,  for  although  I  represent  perhaps  the  strongest 
slave  district  in  Missouri,  and  have  the  misfortune  to  be 
one  of  the  largest  slave-owners  in  the  county  where  I  reside, 
I  had  already  determined  to  vote  for  the  I3th  amend- 
ment." When  he  arose  from  his  chair,  and  grasping  me 
by  the  hand,  gave  it  a  hearty  shake,  and  said,  "  I  am  most 
delighted  to  hear  that."  He  asked  me  how  many  more  of 
the  Missouri  Delegates  in  the  House  would  vote  for  it." 
I  said  I  could  not  tell ;  the  Republicans  of  course  would, 


JAMES    S.     ROLLINS.  493 

General  Loan,  Mr.  Blow,  Mr.  Boyd,  and  Col.  McClurg. 
He  said  :  "  Won't  General  Price  vote  for  it  ?  He  is  a  good 
Union  man."  I  said  I  could  not  answer.  "Well,  what 
about  Governor  King  ?"  I  told  him  I  did  not  know.  He 
then  asked  about  Judges  Hall  and  Norton.  I  said  they 
would  both  vote  against  it,  I  thought.  "  Well,"  he  said, 
"  are  you  on  good  terms  with  Price  and  King  ?"  I  respond- 
ed in  the  affirmative,  and  that  I  was  on  easy  terms  with  the 
entire  delegation.  He  then  asked  me  if  I  would  not  talk 
with  those  who  might  be  persuaded  to  vote  for  the  amend- 
ment, and  report  to  him  as  soon  as  I  could  find  out  what 
the  prospect  was.  I  answered  I  would  do  so  with  pleas- 
ure, and  remarked,  at  the  same  time,  that  when  a  young 
man,  in  1848,  I  was  the  Whig  competitor  of  King,  for 
Governor  of  Missouri,  and  as  he  beat  me  very  badly,  I 
think  now  he  should  pay  me  back  by  voting  as  I  desire 
him  to  on  this  important  question  :  I  promised  the  Presi- 
dent I  would  talk  to  these  gentlemen  upon  the  subject. 
He  said  :  "I  would  like  you  to  talk  to  all  the  Border  State 
men  whom  you  can  approach  properly,  and  tell  them  of 
my  anxiety  to  have  the  measure  pass  ;  and  let  me  know 
the  prospect  of  the  Border  State  vote,"  which  I  prom- 
ised to  do.  He  again  said:  "  The  passage  of  this  amend- 
ment will  clinch  the  whole  subject ;  it  will  bring  the  war, 
I  have  no  doubt,  rapidly  to  a  close."  I  have  never  seen 
any  one  evince  deeper  interest  and  anxiety  upon  any 
subject  than  did  Mr.  Lincoln  upon  the  passage  of  this 
amendment.  The  next  day  I  saw  both  General  Price 
and  Governor  King,  and  had  a  long  private  interview 
with  each  of  them.  When  I  mentioned  the  matter  to 
General  Price,  he  became  at  once  quite  excited,  and 


494  JAMES    S.     ROLLINS. 

expressed  himself,  in  strong  language,  against  the  amend- 
ment ;  and  said :  "  Lincoln  don't  know  that  I  am  the 
owner  of  seventy  negroes,  does  he  ?"  I  said,  "  I  don't 
know;  but  suppose  you  owned  a  thousand  negroes, 
what  would  they  amount  to,  compared  with  the  stop- 
ping of  this  infernal  war,  and  saving  the  American 
Union  ?"  I  left  General  Price,  and  seeking  Governor 
King,  took  him  into  one  of  the  cloak-rooms  of  the 
House,  and  had  a  more  quiet  conversation  with  him 
upon  the  subject.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  decided  in 
his  own  mind  how  he  should  vote  upon  the  I3th 
amendment.  He  said  he  had  been  thinking  upon  the 
subject  a  good  deal,  but  said  :  "  You  know  my  people  o  /-c 
opposed  to  it."  I  responded  :  "  Governor,  at  least  two- 
thirds  of  the  people  in  my  district  are  opposed  to  the 
passage  of  this  amendment ;  but  there  are  questions 
sometimes  bigger  than  constituencies,  and  I  intend  to 
vote,  and  speak  in  favor  of  this  amendment,  and  make 
our  country  free  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  name,  and  get 
clear  of  this  infamous  rebellion."  Before  I  left  him  he 
said  he  thought  he  would  vote  for  it,  which  he  did. 
I  conversed  with  most  of  the  Border  State  men  who 
could  be  approached,  upon  the  question  ;  told  them  of 
the  President's  deep  anxiety  in  regard  to  it,  and  I  have 
ever  believed  that  the  interviews  had  some  influence 
in  strengthening  the  final  vote  for  the  i3th  amendment. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  when  the  vote  in 
the  House  was  taken,  the  amendment  was  carried 
by  a  small  majority;  and,  being  approved,  on 
the  ist  day  of  February,  1865,  became  substantially  a 
part  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  being 


JAMES    S.     ROLLINS.  495 

subsequently  ratified  by  all  the  States.  Several  days 
after  the  passage  of  this  amendment  through  Congress, 
I  called  upon  President  Lincoln,  and  I  never  saw  him 
evince  greater  joy  at  the  news  of  any  victory  won 
upon  the  field  of  battle,  than  he  did  over  the  passage  of 
this  amendment.  He  said  :  "  I  read  your  speech,  one 
night,  after  I  had  gone  to  bed,  and  it  is  the  best 
speech  delivered  in  Congress  during  this  session."  I 
suppose  that  the  good  President  felt  he  owed  me  this 
much  on  account  of  my  earnest  co-operation  with  him 
in  endeavoring  to  put  through  this  important  amend- 
ment. It  is  the  most  important,  as  it  is  to  me  the  most 
satisfactory  vote  I  ever  cast  in  a  legislative  assembly. 

It  was  well  understood,  and  especially  in  Missouri,  that 
General  Sterling  Price,  of  Confederate  military  fame, 
immediately  prior  to  and  about  the  commencement  of 
the  rebellion,  claimed  to  be  a  Union  man,  and,  as  such, 
was  elected  president  of  the  convention  which  assembled 
in  February  and  March,  1861,  in  Jefferson  City  and  St. 
Louis,  to  take  into  consideration  the  then  existing  con- 
dition of  things  in  the  State  of  Missouri.  He  had  been 
a  warm  supporter  of  Colonel  Benton  during  his  contest 
with  the  nullifiers  of  the  State.  It  was  thought  by  many 
that  he  went  very  reluctantly  into  the  rebellion,  and  as 
late  as  1863  it  was  frequently  said,  and  by  persons  pre- 
sumed to  know,  he  was  getting  very  tired  of  the  Con- 
federate cause,  and  that  he  would  be  gratified  if  he  could 
get  out  of  it  honorably.  I  had  a  conversation  with  a 
gentleman  bearing  a  very  near  relation  to  him,  and  this 
subject  was  mentioned  ;  he  was  of  the  same  impression 
with  others,  that  General  Price  would  like  to  abandon  the 


456  JAMES    S.     ROLLINS. 

rebellion.  As  he  was  a  very  popular  officer,  command 
ing  a  large  body  of  men,  and  most  of  them  from  Mis 
souri,  I  thought  it  might  be  well  to  sound  him  upon  the 
subject,  and  to  this  end  it  was  agreed  that  a  reliable  mes- 
senger be  sent  to  him,  that  his  real  sentiments  might  be 
ascertained.  A  pass  was  obtained  by  me  for  him  through 
the  Federal  lines,  General  Price  at  that  time  being  in  the 
State  of  Texas  ;  but  upon  the  arrival  of  the  messenger 
at  the  Confederate  lines,  some  distance  below  Cairo,  he 
was  not  allowed  to  go  through  into  the  Confederacy  ;  de- 
termined, however,  not  to  give  up  so  valuable  an  enter- 
prise, I  wrote  to  a  member  of  the  Confederate  Congress 
then  in  session  at  Richmond,  Va.,  from  Missouri,  to  obtain 
a  pass  through  their  lines  for  the  person  above  referred 
to.  It  was  not  long  before  I  received  an  answer  to  my 
letter,  in  which  the  gentleman  stated  he  had  submitted 
the  proposition  to  President  Davis,  and  he  promptly  re- 
fused to  grant  the  request,  and  in  this  my  correspondent 
said  he  entirely  agreed  with  him.  So  the  project  failed, 
simply  because  General  Price  could  not  be  reached, 
and  his  opinion  on  the  subject  could  not  be  as- 
certained. At  that  time  it  would  have  been  a  grand 
thing  if  General  Price  could  have  been  induced 
to  abandon  the  Confederacy  and  return  to  his  loyalty 
to  the  United  States,  as  he  wielded  an  immense  influence, 
and  could  have  reclaimed  a  large  number  of  young  men 
who  had  been  persuaded  against  their  better  judgment 
to  make  war  upon  their  country.  About  the  time  I  con- 
ceived this  thought,  in  August,  1863,  I  happened  to  be  in 
the  office  of  President  Lincoln,  when  I  ventured  to  men- 
tion the  subject  to  him.  He  was  very  much  amused  at 


JAMES    S.    ROLLINS.  497 

my  proposition,  regarding  it  as  not  at  all  feasible,  and  at 
the  same  time  perpetrating  quite  a  number  of  jokes  at 
my  expense.  I  insisted,  however,  that  it  be  tried,  as  no 
harm  could  come  of  it,  and  we  would  at  least  find  how 
General  Price's  pulse  beat  upon  the  subject,  and  all  I 
asked  of  him  was  that  he  give  the  messenger  a  pass 
through  the  Federal  lines,  to  see  General  Price.  "  Well, 
he  said,  "we  will  see  what  General  Hitchcock  says  about 
it,"  and  ringing  his  bell,  he  sent  for  General  Hitchcock, 
who  then  had  charge  of  the  transmission  of  messages 
between  the  Governments  at  Washington  and  Richmond. 
In  a  few  moments  General  Hitchcock  made  his  appear- 
ance, when  the  President  said  to  him  :  "  General,  here  is 

Rollins  from  Missouri,  who  has  had  an  intimation  that 

* 

General  Price,  now  in  Texas,  might  be  induced  to  give 
up  his  opposition,  and  quit  his  war  upon  the  United 
States,  and  return  to  his  home  in  Missouri."  They  both 
laughed  very  heartily  at  the  idea,  but  finally  issued  the 
pass,  and  also  sent  some  papers  which  I  had  prepared 
through  the  lines  to  Richmond.  After  receiving  the 
papers  Mr.  Lincoln  said  to  me,  pleasantly:  "  Now,  Rollins, 
this  is  a  very  delicate  business,  and  I  don't  want  you  to 
get  me  into  any  scrape  about  it ;  this  is  your  project,  and 
not  mine ;  if  Sterling  Price  will  come  back,  all  I  have  to 
say,  I  will  do  the  fair  thing  by  him  ;  and  if  you  can  get 
him  to  come  back  and  disband  his  men,  it  will  be  equal  to 
a  half-dozen  victories  to  the  Union  side ;  but  this  thing 
must  not  go  into  the  papers,  or  be  spoken  of  outside  of 
you,  Hitchcock  and  myself."  I  then  said  to  him  :  "  Mr. 
President,  I  wish  you  would  give  me  a  memorandum 
showing  your  good  disposition  towards  General  Price," 

33 


4g3  JAMES    S     ROLLINS. 

which  he  said  he  would  do,  and  at  once  took  up  his  pen 
and  wrote  a  short  note  and  handed  it  to  me,  the  original 
of  which,  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  handwriting,  I  have  now  in 
my  possession,  and  is  here  copied,  and  this  anecdote  again 
illustrates  his  kindly  feeling  to  those  in  arms  against  the 
Government  of  the  United  States. 

"EXECUTIVE   MANSION, 

"WASHINGTON,  August,  1863." 
"  HON.  JAS.  S.  ROLLINS  : 

"Yours  in  reference  to  General  Sterling  Price  is  re- 
ceived. If  he  voluntarily  returns  and  takes  the  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  United  States,  before  the  next  meeting 
of  Congress,  I  will  pardon  him,  if  you  shall  then  wish  me 
to  do  so. 

' "  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 

During  the  winter  of  1864-65,  as  I  now  remember  the 
time,  a  gentleman  came  to  Washington,  named  Colonel 
Lane,  who  was  one  of  my  constituents,  and  resided  in 
Montgomery  Co.,  Missouri.  I  had  known  him  in  Missouri. 
He  was  a  number  of  times  at  my  rooms  in  Washington, 
and  told  me  he  had  been  operating  with  the  United 
States  detective  force  on  the  Mississippi  river,  he  having 
an  official  connection  therewith.  I  knew  nothing  to  the 
prejudice  of  Colonel  Lane.  He  had  been  recommended  to 
the  Government  by  such  respectable  and  patriotic  gentle- 
men as  James  O.  Broadhead,  Samuel  S.  Glover  and  Judge 
S.  M.  Breckenridge,  as  I  now  recall.  On  an  occasion, 
when  at  my  room,  in  giving  me  an  account  of  his  war  ex- 
periences in  running  up  and  down  the  Mississippi  river 


JAMES     S.    ROLLINS.  409 

on  steamboats,  he  told  me  at  one  time  he  had  left  the 
boat  and  gone  out  into  the  State  of  Mississippi,  where  he 
had  remained  some  time;  that  whilst  there  he  had  heard 
a  plan  discussed  by  a  number  of  young  and  warlike 
gentlemen  9  as  to  how  the  President  of  the  United  States 
might  be  disposed  of.  He  got  in,  so  to  speak,  with  these 
young  fellows  ;  he  was  anxious  to  find  out  more  about  it, 
and  was  one  of  them  for  a  number  of  days.  The  plan 
agreed  upon  was  to  obtain  a  box  about  six  or  seven  inches 
square,  containing  an  explosive  material,  and  which  on 
being  opened  would  explode,  and  most  probably  destroy 
the  person  who  held  it  in  his  hand.  He  told  me  he  had 
seen  this  box,  and  held  it  in  his  own  hands  ;  that  the  pur- 
pose and  design  was  to  send  it  to  Washington  directed  to 
Mr.  Lincoln,  and  place  it  in  the  Presidential  Mansion, 
where  he  would  most  likely  get  and  open  it.  To  me  this 
was  a  most  extraordinary  and  infamous  disclosure ;  it 
arrested  my  serious  thought  and  attention.  I  could 
hardly  credit  it,  and  yet  could  see  no  motive  for  such  a  fab- 
rication. I  asked  Colonel.  Lane  if  he  was  serious  in  what 
he  said.  He  said  he  was,  and  had  only  related  to  me 
what  he  had  witnessed  with  his  own  eyes.  I  said  to  him  at 
once  :  "  Colonel  Lane,  if  the  facts  you  relate  to  me  are  true 
you  should  not  lose  a  moment  in  communicating  the  facts 
to  the  President.  Will  you  go  up  with  me,  call  upon  the 
President,  and  make  the  same  statement  to  him  ?"  Cer- 
tainly, he  said,  he  would  go  up,  as  he  wished  to  tell  Pres- 
ident Lincoln  precisely  what  he  had  told  me.  I  then 
•  said  to  him:  "  Come  to  my  room  in  the  morning,  in  Twelfth 
street,  when  I  will  have  a  hack  ready,  when  we  will  drive 
up  to  the  White  House."  He  was  a  little  late  putting  in 


500  JAMES    S.    ROLLINS. 

an  appearance  next  morning,  but  I  waited  for  him,  and 
as  soon  as  he  arrived  we  mounted  into  the  hack,  and 
drove  off  to  the  President's  office.  It  so  happened  there 
were  great  numbers  of  visitors  who  had  preceded  us,  and 
were  occupying  the  reception-room.  I  sent  in  my  card, 
but  so  many  others  were  in  advance  of  me,  I  failed  to  ob- 
tain an  audience  that  morning.  We  remained  until  one 
o'clock,  when  the  messenger  announced  that  the  Presi- 
dent would  see  no  more  visitors  that  day,  and  those 
present  were  dismissed.  Colonel  Lane  and  myself  drove 
back  to  my  room,  intending  to  ask  an  audience  at 
another  time.  This,  I  think,  was  on  Saturday,  and,  as 
near  as  I  can  now  remember,  in  the  month  of  December 
or  January  in  the  year  1864-65.  When  I  parted  with 
Colonel  Lane  it  was  not  his  intention  to  leave  Washing- 
ton for  several  days ;  but  he  received  a  telegram  that 
evening,  as  he  informed  me  in  a  letter,  calling  him  to 
Wheeling,  West  Va.,  and  which  compelled  him  to  leave 
in  the  evening  train.  I  did  not  see  him  again  during 
that  session  of  Congress,  which  terminated  on  the  4th  of 
March,  1865,  the  day  of  the  second  inauguration  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  as  President.  A  few  days  thereafter,  having 
business  at  the  White  House,  I  called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln 
again,  when  I  happened  to  find  him  alone,  and  seemingly 
in  a  very  cheerful  humor.  He  received  me  very  cordially, 
as  was  his  habit,  and  after  dispatching  the  business  which 
called  me  to  see  him,  I  ventured  to  tell  him  precisely 
what  I  had  learned  from  Lane,  and  as  I  have  stated  it 
above.  I  observed  he  listened  to  what  I  had  to  say-  very 
attentively,  and  when  I  had  finished  my  story,  I  said  in 
an  apologetic  tone-  "  Mr.  President,  nothing  but  a  sense  of 


JAMES    S.     ROLLINS.  501 

duty  and  the  interest  I  feel  in  you  and  the  country  would 
have  prompted  me  to  have  mentioned  a  matter  of  this 
kind  to  you.  I  have  simply  told  you  the  tale  as  it  was 
told  to  me."  He  thanked  me  kindly  for  what  I  had  told 
him,  and  said  he  appreciated  the  good  feeling  and  friend- 
ship which  prompted  it ;  but,  treating  the  whole  matter 
jocularly,  he  said :  "  I  don't  pay  much  attention  to  such 
things.  I  have  received  quite  a  number  of  threatening 
letters  since  I  have  been  President,  and  nobody  has 
killed  me  yet,  and  the  truth  is,  I  give  very  little  consider- 
ation to  such  things."  I  told  him  the  little  I  knew  of 
Lane,  and  said  to  him  :  "  Now,  I  hardly  see  why  a  man 
should  get  up  a  story  of  this  sort  unless  there  was  some 
foundation  for  it.  I  believe  he  has  witnessed  what  he  re- 
lates." Upon  rising  to  take  leave  I  said,  pleasantly : 
"Mr.  President,  I  feel  relieved  in  having  unburdened  my- 
self in  telling  you  what  I  have.  I  have  acted  from  a 
sense  of  duty  ;  and  now,  let  me  add,  if  you  should  come 
into  your  office  one  of  those  mornings  and  find  sitting 
upon  your  table  a  wooden  box  about  six  inches  square,  I 
beg  of  you  not  to  open  it ;  let  some  one  else  attend  to 
that ;  but  if  you  attempt  to  open  it,  and  the  nation  lose 
its  President,  I  want  it  understood  I  have  cleared  my 
skirts."  He  again  thanked  me  and  laughed  very  heartily, 
and  said,  "  Now,  I  will  tell  you — I  promise  you  if  I  find 
any  boxes  on  my  table  directed  to  me,  I  won't  open 
them."  Pausing  a  moment  just  as  I  was  taking  my  leave 
of  him,  the  smile  which  had  just  lighted  up  his  face  de- 
parted, and  a  certain  melancholy  expression,  which  I  had 
often  seen  him  wear,  took  its  place,  and  he  said  seriously, 
and  in  language  he  evidently  felt,  "Rollins,  I  dorit  see 


502  JAMES    S.     ROLLINS. 

what  on  God's  earth  any  man  would  wish  to  kill  me 
for,  for  there  is  not  a  human  being  living  to  whom  1 
would  not  extend  a  favor,  and  make  them  happy  if  it 
was  in  my  power  to  do  so"  It  occurred  to  me,  on  leav- 
ing him,  the  conversation  I  had  had  with  him  had  left 
quite  an  impression  on  his  mind.  This  occurred,  accord- 
ing to  my  best  recollection,  in  January,  1865. 

Before  the  close  of  the  session  of  Congress,  I  was  sev- 
eral times  in  the  office  of  the  President,  to  see  him  on 
business,  and  on  one  occasion,  when  I  was  about  leaving 
the  room,  he  said  to  me,  in  a  jocular  manner :  "  Well, 
Rollins,  I  have  not  received  my  box  yet."  I  responded, 
"  I  am  gratified  to  hear  it,"  but  again  warned  him  not  to 
open  any  box  of  the  kind  left  upon  his  table,  and  I  left 
the  room. 

At  the  close  of  the  Thirty-eighth  Congress,  I  was 
present  at  the  second  inauguration  of  President  Lincoln, 
and  remained  in  Washington  several  days  thereafter. 
My  second  term  in  Congress  having  ended  with  the  ex- 
piration of  the  Thirty-eighth  Congress,  before  leaving  for 
Missouri  I  called  at  the  White  House,  to  pay  my  re- 
spects to  the  President  and  take  my  leave  of  him.  I 
found  him  in  his  office  in  a  very  genial  humor,  and  I  had" 
a  pleasant  conversation  with  him.  He  seemed  to  be 
hopeful  that  the  war  troubles  would  soon  be  over,  which 
greatly  rejoiced  him.  When  I  rose  to  bid  him  good-bye, 
he  gave  me  a  cordial  shake  of  the  hand,  and  said  :  "  Rol- 
lins, the  box  has  not  come  to  hand  yet."  I  responded  : 
"  That  is  well,  Mr.  President,  I  am  glad  to  hear 
it.  I  hope  it  may  never  come ;  but  if  it  does,  I  charge 


JAMES    S.     ROLLINS. 


503 


you  not  to  open  it."     This  is  the  last  time  I  ever  saw, 
and  this  was  my  last  interview  with,  Abraham  Lincoln. 

About  six  weeks  afterwards,  when  I  was  in  the  city  of 
Chillicothe,  Livingston  county,  Missouri,  away  up  on 
Grand  River,  on  the  I5th  day  of  April,  1865,  I  was  most 
deeply  shocked  and  grieved  to  hear  that  President  Lin- 
coln and  several  members  of  his  Cabinet  had  been  assas- 
sinated. 


COLUMBIA,  1882. 


504  E.    D.     TOWNSEND. 


A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN.  There  was  a  majesty  in 
Ji\  his  character  which  shone  forth  on  all  great  occa- 
sions. Though  oppressed  with  the  weight  of  novel  respon- 
sibilities, he  rose  above  all  obstacles,  and  proved  himself 
equal  to  every  emergency.  As  a  ruler  he  was  just  and 
efficient,  not  prone  to  yield  unduly  to  the  judgment  of 
others  ;  of  a  kind  heart  and  genial  nature,  he  was  a  stead- 
fast friend,  a  magnanimous  enemy.  The  reverence  in 
which  he  was  held  by  the  entire  populace  was  strikingly 
exhibited  in  the  demeanor  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
who  witnessed  the  progress  of  the  martyred  President's 
funeral  cortege  from  the  city  of  Washington  to  Spring- 
field, 111.  —  none  were  seen  to  smile,  many  wept.  The 
world  never  before  looked  upon  such  a  spectacle  of  a  na- 
tion's profound  grief. 


WASHINGTON,  1880. 


H.    M.    RECTOR.  505 


MY  sentiments  of  the  life  and  services  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  are,  that  he  was  a  big-headed,  big- 
hearted  man — a  man  of  destiny,  sent,  like  Washington, 
to  perform  a  great  moral  and  political  mission.  Born  in 
a  tent,  reared  in  poverty,  in  the  Slave  State  of  Kentucky, 
from  infancy  he  imbibed  early  and  lasting  prejudices 
against  slave-holders  and  slavery.  Hence,  his  efforts  in 
after  life  were  directed  by  a  scrupulous  regard  for  what 
he  esteemed  a  public  duty.  His  administration  evinced 
wisdom,  forbearance,  persistence,  and  was  a  success.  His 
mission  is  performed.  His  advent  and  destiny  will  em- 
blazon history  so  long  as  the  science  of  government 
shall  be  read  and  propagated  by  men.  A  humane  be- 
nevolence was  amongst  his  most  estimable  traits. 


506  JOHN    H.    BARROWS. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS. 

ABRAHAM    LINCOLN'S   CAREER. 

ONE  of  the  noteworthy  features  of  Lincoln's 
wonderful  life  was  the  manifest  deepening  of  his 
sense  of  God's  Presence  and  Providence  during  those 
later  years  when  he  bore  the  imperiled  nation  on  his 
heart.  He  who  is  accustomed  to  discern  a  divine  Hand 
in  history  must  look  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  man  raised 
up  for  a  great  purpose  by  him  who  lifted  Joseph  out  of 
the  pit  to  be  ruler  over  Egypt,  and  exalted  David  from 
the  Bethlehem  sheep-fold  to  be  Israel's  king.  How  far 
Mr.  Lincoln  himself  discerned  God  in  Revelation  or  in 
the  orderings  of  human  life,  previous  to  his  exaltation  to 
the  Presidency,  may  not  be  fully  known.  He  had  early  in 
his  youth  read  the  Bible  and  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and 
although  the  atmosphere  of  his  legal  and  political  life  in 
Illinois  was  not  helpful  to  faith,  still  he  was  known  to 
several  Christian  ministers  as  a  man  of  serious  thought- 
fulness,  if  of  little  knowledge,  in  the  domain  of  Christian 
truth. 

But  the  great  anti-slavery  debates  and  the  nation's 
terrific  struggle  for  existence  were  the  rain  and  the  solar 
heat  that  awakened  and  called  forth  the  diviner  nature, 
the  heavenward  side  of  this  gracious  and  humane  spirit. 
The  contest  against  American  slavery  was  essentially 
religious — a  defense  of  fundamental  Christian  truth,  the 


JOHN    H.     BARROWS.  507 

it 
sacredness  and  worth  of  that  humanity  for  which  Christ 

died.  The  heroes  of  West  India  emancipation,  Zachary 
Macaulay,  Thomas  Clarkson  and  William  Wilberforce, 
were  disciples  of  Him  who  came  to  break  every  yoke 
and  let  the  oppressed  go  free.  Green,  the  great  English 
historian,  finds  the  primal  moral  impulse  which  led 
England  to  free  the  negro  in  the  great  revivals  under 
Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys.  Wendell  Phillips  says  of 
the  early  American  abolitionists  that  they  "  bound  the 
Bible  to  their  brows."  This  great  orator  of  Boston  has 
written  severe  things  of  the  churches.  He  has  scathed 
hypocrisy  as  no  other  man  in  our  generation  has  done. 
But,  having  bowed  my  head  in  prayer  with  this  old 
apostle  of  freedom,  and  having  heard  him  seek  the 
blessing  of  God  through  the  merits  of  Christ,  the  great 
Emancipator,  I  have  never  had  the  least  suspicion  that 
the  movement  which  destroyed  American  slavery  was  an 
infidel  crusade !  Looking  into  the  coffin  which  held  the 
form  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Wendell  Phillips  ex- 
claimed :  "  Farewell  for  a  little  while,  noblest  of  Christian 
men."  In  reviewing  the  anti-slavery  contest,  the  younger 
generation  should  not  forget,  and  are  not  likely  to  forget, 
that  the  most  stirring  lyrics  ever  sung  to  freedom  came 
from  the  Christian  lips  of  Whittier ;  that  for  years  the 
most  potent  voice  denouncing  slavery  sounded  from  Ply- 
mouth pulpit,  and  that  the  volume  which  converted  the 
heart  of  the  North,  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  was  written 
by  a  Christian  woman,  and  is  itself  perhaps  the  most 
religious  work  of  fiction  since  Bunyan  wrote  his  immortal 
allegory.  Charles  Sumner  was  continually  hurling  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  at  our  great  national  sin,  and 


5o8  JOHN    H.     BARROWS. 

% 

Abraham  Lincoln  derived  his  deeper  anti-slavery  con- 
victions, as  he  confessed,  from  a  sermon  by  the  lion- 
hearted  Leonard  Bacon,  of  New  Haven. 

All  the  world  knows  that  when  the  newly-elected 
President  was  about  to  assume  the  government  of  the 
nation,  he  asked  the  prayers  of  his  neighbors  in  Spring- 
field. Lincoln's  was  a  nature  far  from  shallow.  There 
was  a  moral  sensitiveness  about  him,  that  made  him  weak, 
as  an  attorney,  in  defending  a  cause  of  uncertain  right- 
eousness. He  was  wont  to  seek  after  laws  underlying 
special  facts.  It  has  been  said  of  him  that  "  he  saw 
through  his  lawyer's  brief  the  general  principles  of  the 
Divine  administration."  His  deeper  nature  developed 
and  ripened  as  Providence  brought  him  to  bear  the 
weight  of  majestic  and  solemn  responsibilities.  In  the 
anxious  uncertainties  of  the  great  war,  he  gradually  rose 
to  the  heights  where  Jehovah  became  to  him  the  sublimest 
of  realities,  the  Ruler  of  nations.  When  he  wrote  his 
immortal  Proclamation,  he  invoked  upon  it  not  only 
"  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind,"  but "  the  gracious 
favor  of  Almighty  God  "  When  darkness  gathered  over 
the  brave  armies  fighting  for  the  nation's  life,  this 
strong  man,  in  the  early  morning,  knelt  and  wrestled  in 
prayer  with  him  who  holds  in  his  hand  the  fate  of 
empires.  When  the  clouds  lifted  above  the  carnage  of 
Gettysburg,  he  gave  his  heart  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
When  he  pronounced  his  matchless  oration  on  the  chief 
battle-field  of  the  war,  he  gave  expression  to  the  resolve 
that  "  this  nation,  under  God,  should  have  a  new  birth 
of  freedom."  And  when  he  wrote  his  last  Inaugural 


JOHN    H.     BARROWS.  509 

Address,  he  gave  to  it  the  lofty  religious  tone  of  an  old 
Hebrew  Psalm. 

In  1873,  I  stood  on  the  broad  granite  platform  of  that 
noble  monument  which  has  been  built  in  Oak  Ridge 
Cemetery  above  all  that  was  mortal  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  A  great  crowd  stood  reverently  in  the  May 
sunshine,  while  the  Jubilee  Singers,  men  and  women  whom 
the  good  President  had  liberated,  sang,  with  the  hot  tears 
rolling  down  their  dusky  cheeks,  as  they  rolled  down  our 
paler  faces,  the  great  "  Battle-Hymn  of  the  Republic," 
with  its  tuneful  suggestions  of  that  other  Christian 
martyr  who  died  at  Harper's  Ferry,  attacking  the  wrong 
which  at  last  had  been  trampled  out  in  blood  to  the  music 
of  the  old  man's  name  : 

"  Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord, 
He  is  trampling  out  the  vintage  where  the  grapes  of  wrath  were 

stored, 

He  hath  loosed  the  fateful  lightning  of  his  terrible  swift  sword, 
His  truth  is  marching  on. 

"  In  the  beauty  of  the  lilies  Christ  was  born  across  the  sea, 
With  a  glory  in  his  bosom  that  transfigures  you  and  me  ; 
As  he  died  to  make  men  holy,  let  us  die  to  make  men  free, 
While  God  is  marching  on." 

The  whole  scene  was  a  chapter  in  the  modern  evidences 
of  Christianity,  witnessing  to  the  world  that  the  lightning 
which  melted  the  shackles  off  from  four  millions  of  slaves 
is  the  same  with  that  which  gleamed  among  the  clouds 
of  Mount  Sinai  of  old,  and  played  above  the  summit  of 
the  Cross  of  Calvary. 

All  the  great  epochs  of  American  history  have  been 


5io  JOHN    H.     BARROWS. 

profoundly  religious.  John  Winthrop  felt  that  "  the  civil 
state  must  be  reared  out  of  the  churches."  Mulford,  in 
his  great  work  on  this  nation,  gathers  together  the  words 
of  Franklin  before  the  Convention  which  formed  the 
Constitution  :  "  Except  the  Lord  build  the  house,  they 
labor  in  vain  that  build  it.  I  firmly  believe  this ;"  and 
the  words  of  Washington  in  his  first  inaugural :  "No 
people  can  be  bound  to  adore  the  hand  which  conducts 
the  affairs  of  men,  more  than  the  people  of  the  United 
States  ;"  and  the  words  of  Jefferson  :  "  I  shall  need,  too, 
the  favor  of  that  Being  in  whose  hands  we  all  are,  who 
led  our  fathers,  as  Israel  of  old,  from  their  native  land ;" 
and  he  says  of  the  last  inaugural  of  President  Lincoln 
that  "  it  was  the  unbroken  expression  of  the  spirit  of  these 
Scriptures,  and  its  whole  thought  was  gathered  up  in  their 
words  in  the  recognition  of  One  who  will  establish 
righteousness  on  the  earth." 


CHICAGO,  1882. 


Jt.    M.     BISHOP.  ,  •'  5 1 1 


I  KNEW  Mr.  Lincoln  personally,  being  Mayor  of  the 
city  of  Cincinnati  in  February,  1861.  It  was  my 
privilege  to  extend  to  him  the  hospitalities  of  the  city  on 
his  way  to  Washington  to  take  his  seat  as  President  of 
the  United  States.  I  respect  him  as  a  man  of  great 
nobleness  of  heart,  purity  of  mind  and  intentions.  I 
consider  him  a  patriot,  whose  every  endeavor  it  was  to 
promote  the  interests  of  his  country.  While  I  differed 
with  him  essentially  in  politics,  I  have  ever  considered 
Lincoln  a  true  man,  actuated  only  by  noble  purposes. 
He  was  a  great  man,  a  good  man,  and  his  name  will  ever 
be  venerated  and  honored  as  one  of  the  brightest  among 
that  gallery  of  illustrious  names  which  make  our  country 
so  famous. 


5:2 


ROBERT    P.     PORTER. 


HISTORY  has  not  left  it  for  me  or  for  any  other 
man   to   magnify  or  detract  from   the  glory  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.     His  record,  inscribed  in  deeds  and 
sealed  with  his  blood,  is  known  and  read  of  all  men. 

A  man  of  strong  native  mental  and  moral  powers,  he 
rose,  by  his  own  exertions,  superior  to  all  the  depriva- 
tions of  poverty  and  pioneer  hardships,  from  the  obscurity 
of  a  backwoods  cabin,  to  command  the  admiration  of  all 
lands  for  all  time. 

At  the  most  critical  period  of  his  country's  history, 
when  even  its  greatest  statesmen  stood  perplexed  and 
confounded  in  the  midst  of  the  political  questions  of  the 
day,  his  penetrating  logic  picked  every  fallacy,  cleft  ever)' 
knob  of  political  casuistry,  and  discovered  the  only  path 
to  the  preservation  of  the  Union  ;  and  through  the 
fiercest,  bloodiest  civil  war  that  a  free  people  ever  en- 
dured, with  unswerving  courage  he  led  four  millions  of 
slaves  to  liberty,  and  re-established  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment in  its  rightful  supremacy.  As  true  to  humanity 
as  he  had  always  been  faithful  to  his  country,  his  last 
words  were  a  prayer  and  benediction  for  his  enemies. 
.  Before  such  a  character  I  stand,  with  all  men,  in 
loving  reverence. 


CHICAGO,  1880. 


GEO.     A.     TOWNSEND.  513 


WESTERN  and  Northern-bred  men  ought  not  to 
forget  that  Lincoln  was  of  the  South.  In  its 
more  instinctive,  less  methodical  school  of  parentage  his 
idiosyncrasies  were  grown.  The  natural  man,  gazing  out 
on  the  better  development  of  the  North,  poetized  and 
reasoned  in  admiration  of  it,  yet  with  melancholy,  for 
he  was  of  the  poorer  and  more  shiftless  race.  Let  us, 
therefore,  learn  from  Lincoln  that  honest  Southernhood 
taken  into  Northernhood  produces  the  most  memorable 
Americanhood  ;  and  that,  though  the  North  prevailed, 
Lincoln,  Johnson,  General  Thomas,  and  many  such  re- 
fined and  endeared  the  victory,  and  made  it  national. 


83 


KUFUS    HATCH. 


A    BRAHAM    LINCOLN,  the   ablest   of   them  all ! 
He  lived  and  died  an  honest  man. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


H.    B.    ANTHONY.  515 


AS  the  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln  steadily  devel- 
oped with  the  developing  demands  and  necessities 
of  the  position  to  which  he  was  elevated,  so  his  fame 
steadily  grows  with  the  increasing  light  which  is  thrown 
upon  what  he  achieved  in  his  great  office ;  the  emer- 
gencies that  he  met,  the  difficulties  that  he  overcame  and 
the  results  that  he  accomplished.  He  will  always  stand 
out,  one  of  the  grand  figures  in  our  history,  one  of  the 
heroes  and  martyrs  in  the  history  of  freedom,  of  cultiva- 
tion of  humanity. 


PROVIDENCE,  1882. 


5i6  W,     G.     GREENE. 


I  RECALL  an  incident  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  early  life, 
which  came  under  my  own  personal  observation, 
and  which  illustrated  his  desire  to  be  just  and  do  right 
while  yet  a  mere  boy,  and  which  showed  his  magnetic 
influence  over  men  among  whom  he  moved.  It  was  in 
1832  ;  we  were  doing  service  in  the  Black  Hawk  War, 
and  while  lying  at  Rock  Island  the  boys  got  up  a  wrest- 
ling match  and  pitted  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  our  captain, 
against  a  famous  athlete  and  wrestler  by  the  name  of 
Thompson,  from  Union  county,  Illinois.  We  Sangamon 
county  boys  believed  Mr.  Lincoln  could  throw  any  one, 
and  the  Union  county  boys  knew  no  one  could  throw 
Thompson  ;  so  we  staked  all  our  slick  and  well-worn 
quarters  and  empty  bottles  on  the  wrestle.  The  first 
fall  was  clearly  in  Thompson's  favor ;  the  second  fall 
was  rather  in  Thompson's  favor,  but  Lincoln's  backers 
claimed  that  it  was  what,  in  those  days,  was  called  a 
"  dog-fall."  Thompson's  backers  claimed  the  stakes, 
while  we  demurred,  and  it  really  looked,  for  some  time, 
as  though  there  would  be  at  least  a  hundred  fights  as 
the  result.  Mr.  Lincoln,  after  getting  up  and  brushing 
the  dust  and  dirt  off  of  his  jean  pants,  said :  "  Boys, 
give  up  your  bet;  if  he  has  not  thrown  me  fairly,  he 
could."  Every  bet  was  at  once  surrendered,  and  peace 
and  order  were  restored  in  a  minute.  During  the  re- 
bellion in  1864  I  had  occasion  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his 
office  at  Washington,  and,  after  having  recalled  many  of 
our  early  recollections,  he  said  :  "  Bill,  what  ever  became 


W.     G.     GREENE.  517 

of  our  old  antagonist,  Thompson,  that  big  curly-headed 
fellow  who  threw  me  at  Rock  Island  ?"  I  replied  I  did 
not  know,  and  wondered  why  he  asked.  He  playfully 
remarked  that  if  he  knew  where  he  was  living  he  would 
give  him  a  post-office,  by  way  of  showing  him  that  he 
bore  him  no  ill-will. 


TALLULA,  1882. 


5i8  CALEB     CARMAN. 


I  BECAME  acquainted  with  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the 
year  1831,  when  he  came  from  Decatur,  Illinois, 
with  a  Mr.  Hanks,  on  the  hull  of  a  flat-boat,  for  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Denton  Offutt.  The  building  of  this 
boat  was  commenced  at  Decatur,  but,  for  want  of  lumber, 
was  brought  by  water  to  Sangamon  town  and  finished, 
as  there  was  a  little  saw-mill  which  furnished  sufficient 
material  to  complete  it.  It  was  the  design  of  Mr.  Offutt 
to  load  it  with  fifteen  hundred  bushels  of  corn  and  take 
it  to  New  Orleans.  The  corn  was  bought  at  ten  cents 
per  bushel,  and  the  boat  was  partially  filled  at  Sanga- 
mon town  ;  then  brought  to  New  Salem  and  finished.  I 
was  standing  on  the  bank  of  the  river  when  the  boat  was 
tied  up,  and  I  don't  think  I  ever  looked  at  as  awkward  a 
man  as  Mr.  Lincoln  was  at  that  time.  He  was  dressed 
in  blue  jean  pants  and  coat,  and  a  wool  shirt  and  slouch 
hat.  I  viewed  him  from  head  to  foot,  and  thought  to 
myself,  What  a  fool !  but  I  had  not  been  in  his  company 
long  until  I  found  out  that  I  was  the  bigger  fool  of  the 
two.  We  became  very  warm  friends  and  strongly  at- 
tached to  each  other.  After  Mr.  Lincoln  sold  the  corn 
in  New  Orleans,  at  fifty  cents  per  bushel,  he  walked  back 
and  took  up  his  residence  at  New  Salem. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature,  but 

o 

was  defeated  by  Peter  Cartwright ;  but  was  successful  in 
being  elected  in  1834.  He  was  boarding  with  me  when 
he  was  appointed  post-master  at  New  Salem  by  Andrew 
Jackson  ;  this  was  previous  to  his  election.  And  while 


CALEB     CARMAN.  519 

in  the  Legislature  he  appointed  me  his  deputy,  as  the 
post-office  was  then  in  my  house.  I  don't  think  I  ever 
saw  Lincoln  idling  any  time  away.  He  had  but  few 
books,  but  those  few  were  always  near  him,  and  in  going 
to  and  from  his  work,  would  read.  He  had  a  wonderful 
retentive  memory,  and  was  a  great  story-teller.  He  was 
liked  by  every  person  who  knew  him.  While  he  boarded 
with  me  he  made  himself  useful  in  every  way  that  he 
could.  If  the  water-bucket  was  empty  he  filled  it;  if 
wood  was  needed  he  chopped  it  ;  and  was  always  cheer- 
ful and  in  a  good  humor.  He  started  out  one  morning 
with  the  axe  on  his  shoulder,  and  I  asked  him  what  he 
was  going  to  do.  His  answer  was  :  "  I  am  going  to  try 
a  project."  When  he  returned  he  had  two  hickory  poles 
on  his  shoulders,  and  in  a  very  short  time  two  of  my 
chairs  had  new  bottoms. 


PETERSBURG,  1882. 


520 


MRS.    NORMAN    B.    JUDD. 


AN  EVENING  WITH  MR.  LINCOLN. 

THERE  are  some  evenings,  the  events  of  which  are 
so  impressed  upon  our  memories,  that  scarcely  a 
word  said,  or  an  act  done,  can  ever  be  forgotten  ;  at  one 
time,  perhaps,  because  of  the  beauty  of  our  surround- 
ings ;  at  another,  because  the  events  were  a  surprise  and 
worthy  of  remembrance.  The  evening  to  which  I  refer 
was  noteworthy  for  both  of  these  reasons. 

It  was,  I  think,  in  the  year  1856.  My  husband,  the 
late  Norman  B.  Judd,  was  attorney  for  the  Rock  Island 
Railroad.  The  bridge  over  the  Mississippi  at  Rock 
Island  had  been  destroyed  by  a  river  steamer  running 
into  it  and  setting  it  on  fire.  The  steamboat  owners 
along  the  Mississippi  had  brought  a  suit  against  the  rail- 
road company,  and  it  was  to  be  tried  in  the  U.  S.  District 
Court  at  Chicago.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  come  to  Chicago  as 
assistant  counsel  in  the  suit.  Mr.  Judd  had  invited  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  spend  the  evening  at  our  pleasant  home  on 
the  shore  of  Lake  Michigan.  After  tea,  and  until  quite 
late,  we  sat  on  the  broad  piazza,  looking  out  upon  as 
lovely  a  scene  as  that  which  has  made  the  Bay  of  Naples 
so  celebrated.  A  number  of  vessels  were  availing  them- 

*_3 

selves  of  a  fine  breeze  to  leave  the  harbor,  and  the  lake 
was  studded  with  many  a  white  sail.  I  remember  that  a 
flock  of  sea-gulls  were  flying  along  the  beach,  and  dipping 
their  beaks  and  white-lined  wings  in  the  foam  that  capped 
the  short  waves  as  they  fell  upon  the  shore. 


MRS.    NORMAN    B.     JUDD.  521 

Whilst  we  sat  there,  the  great  white  moon  appeared 
on  the  rim  of  the  Eastern  horizon,  and  slowly  crept 
above  the  water,  throwing  a  perfect  flood  of  silver  light 
upon  the  dancing  waves.  The  stars  shone  with  the  soft 
light  of  a  midsummer  night,  and  the  breaking  of  the  low 
waves  upon  the  shore,  repeating  the  old  rhythm  of  the 
song  which  they  have  sung  for  ages,  added  the  charm  of 
pleasant  sound  to  the  beauty  of  the  night. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  whose  home  was  far  inland  from  the 
great  lakes,  seemed  greatly  impressed  with  the  wondrous 
beauty  of  the  scene,  and  carried  by  its  impressiveness  away 
from  all  thought  of  the  jars  and  turmoil  of  earth.  In 
that  mild,  pleasant  voice,  attuned  to  harmony  with  his 
surroundings,  and  which  was  his  wont  when  his  soul  was 
stirred  by  aught  that  was  lovely  or  beautiful,  Mr.  Lincoln 
began  to  speak  of  the  mystery  which  for  ages  enshrouded 
and  shut  out  those  distant  worlds  above  us  from  our  own, 
of  the  poetry  and  beauty  which  was  seen  and  felt  by  seers 
of  old  when  they  contemplated  Orion  and  Arcturus  as 
they  wheeled,  seemingly  around  the  earth,  in  their  nightly 
course  ;  of  the  discoveries  since  the  invention  of  the 
telescope,  which  had  thrown  a  flood  of  light  and'  knowl- 
edge on  what  before  was  incomprehensible  and  mysteri- 
ous; of  the  wonderful  computations  of  scientists  who  had 
measured  the  miles  of  seemingly  endless  space  which 
separated  the  planets  in  our  solar  system  from  our  central 
sun,  and  our  sun  from  other  suns,  which  were  now  gemming 
the  heavens  above  us  with  their  resplendent  beauty. 

He  speculated  on  the  possibilities  of  knowledge  which 
an  increased  power  of  the  lens  would  give  in  the  years 
to  come ;  and  then  the  vonderful  discoveries  of  late 


522  MRS.     NORMAN    B.     JUDD. 

centuries  as  proving  that  beings  endowed  with  such  capa- 
bilities as  man  must  be  immortal,  and  created  for  some 
high  and  noble  end  by  him  who  had  spoken  those  num- 
berless worlds  into  existence  ;  and  made  man  a  little 
lower  than  the  angels  that  he  might  comprehend  the 
glories  and  wonders  of  his  creation. 

When  the  night  air  became  too  chilling  to  remain 
longer  on  the  piazza.,  we  went  into  the  parlor,  and,  seated 
on  the  sofa,  his  long  limbs  stretching  across  the  carpet,  and 
his  arms  folded  behind  him,  Mr.  Lincoln  went  on  to  speak 
of  other  discoveries,  and  also  of  the  inventions  which  had 
been  made  during  the  long  cycles  of  time  lying  between 
the  present  and  those  early  days  when  the  sons  of  Adam 
began  to  make  use  of  the  material  things  about  them, 
and  invent  instruments  of  various  kinds  in  brass  and  gold 
and  silver.  He  gave  us  a  short  but  succinct  account  of 
all  the  inventions  referred  to  in  the  Old  Testament  from 
the  time  when  Adam  walked  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  until 
the  Bible  record  ended,  600  B.  c. 

I  said,  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  did  not  know  you  were  such  a 
Bible  student."  He  replied:  "I  must  be  honest,  Mrs. 
Judd,  and  tell  you  just  how  I  came  to  know  so  much 
about  these  early  inventions."  He  then  went  on  to  say 
that,  discussing  with  some  friend  the  relative  age  of  the 
discovery  and  use  of  the  precious  metals,  he  went  to  the 
Bible  to  satisfy  himself,  and  became  so  interested  in  his 
researches  that  he  made  a  memoranda  of  the  different  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  ;  that  soon  after  he  was  invited  to 
lecture  before  some  literary  society,  I  think  in  Blooming- 
ton  ;  that  the  interest  he  had  felt  in  the  study  convinced 
him  that  the  subject  would  interest  others,  and  he  therefore 


MRS.     NORMAN    B.     JUDD.  523 

prepared  and  delivered  his  lecture  on  the  "  Age  of  Differ- 
ent Inventions  :"  and  "  of  course,"  he  added,  "  I  could  not 
after  that  forget  the  order  or  time  of  such  discoveries 
and  inventions." 

After  Mr.  Lincoln  left,  Mr.  Judd  remarked :  "  I  am 
constantly  more  and  more  surprised  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  at- 
tainments and  the  varied  knowledge  he  has  acquired  dur- 
ing years  of  constant  labor  at  the  Bar,  in  every  depart- 
ment of  science  and  learning.  A  professor  at  Yale  could 
not  have  been  more  interesting  or  more  enthusiastic." 

Another  incident  in  connection  with  the  railroad  suit 
above  referred  to  may  be  of  interest. 

Mr.  Joseph  Knox,  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  in 
Illinois,  was  also  engaged  as  counsel  in  the  defense.  Mr. 
Lincoln  began  his  speech  in  the  forenoon  and  spoke  un- 
til the  court  adjourned  at  noon.  Mr.  Knox  dined  with 
us  that  day.  He  sat  down  at  the  dinner  table  in  great 
excitement,  saying:  "Lincoln  has  lost  the  case  for  us. 
The  admissions  he  made  in  regard  to  the  currents  in  the 
Mississippi  at  Rock  Island  and  Moline  will  convince  the 
court  that  a  bridge  at  that  point  will  always  be  a  serious 
and  constant  detriment  to  navigation  on  the  river." 

Mr.  Judd's  reply  was  in  substance  that  Mr.  Lincoln's 
admissions  in  regard  to  the  currents  were  facts  that  could 
not  be  denied,  but  that  they  only  proved  that  the  bridge 
should  have  been  built  at  a  different  angle  to  the  stream, 
and  that  a  bridge  so  built  could  not  injure  the  river  as  a 
navigable  stream.  This  reply  was  noteworthy  as  fore- 
shadowing Mr.  Lincoln's  argument  made  in  the  afternoon. 
The  case  was  decided  in  their  favor,  and  although  carried 
later  to  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington,  where  it  was 


524  MRS.     NORMAN    B.     JUDD. 

argued  against  by  the  Hon.  Caleb  Gushing,  one  of  the 
ablest  lawyers  in  the  United  States,  the  lawyers  on  the 
side  of  the  Bridge  company  won  their  case,  and  forever  de- 
cided the  question  that  bridges  could  be  built  under 
proper  restrictions  on  all  navigable  streams  in  the  United 
States. 


SENECA  FALLS,  1882. 


JOHN    A  VERY.  525 


THE  more  the  smoke  of  party  strife  clears  away,  as 
we  recede  from  the  times  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
the  civil  war,  the  grander  does  the  form  of  the  Martyr 
President  stand  forth  as  the  representative  of  sagacious 
statesmanship  and  unsullied  patriotism.  It  has  not  fallen 
to  the  lot  of  any  American  since  Washington  to  be  so 
loved  and  lamented  by  the  whole  nation,  without  distinc- 
tion of  race,  section,  or  party.  He  was  suddenly 
snatched  away  in  the  midst  of  his  usefulness,  but  he  has 
left  a  name  behind  which  is  a  precious  legacy  to  future 
generations  of  his  countrymen,  teaching  ambitious  youth 
that  immortality  may  be  most  surely  won,  not  by  employing 
the  tricks  of  the  politician,  but  by  unselfish  devotion  to 
the  welfare  of  their  country. 


BOWDOIN  COLLEGE,  1880. 


5  26  WM.     //.     HERN  DON. 


THE    ANALYSIS    OF    MR.   LINCOLN'S  CHAR- 
ACTER. 

A  BRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  born  in  Hardin  county, 
JL\  Kentucky,  February  i2th,  1809.  He  moved  to 
Indiana  in  1816;  came  to  Illinois  in  March,  1830;  to 
old  Sangamon  county,  in  1831,  settling  in  New  Salem, 
and  from  this  last  place  to  this  city  in  April,  1837  ; 
coming  as  a  rude,  uncultivated  boy,  without  polish  or 
education,  and  having  no  friends.  He  was  about  six  feet 
four  inches  high;  and  when  he  left  this  city  was  fifty-one 
years  old,  having  good  health  and  no  gray  hairs,  or  but 
few,  on  his  head.  He  was  thin,  wiry,  sinewy,  raw-boned  ; 
thin  through  the  breast  to  the  back,  and  narrow  across 
the  shoulders ;  standing,  he  leaned  forward — was  what 
may  be  called  stoop-shouldered,  inclining  to  the  consump- 
tive by  build.  His  usual  weight  was  one  hundred  and 
sixty  pounds.  His  organization — rather  his  structure 
and  functions — worked  slowly.  His  blood  had  to  run  a 
long  distance  from  his  heart  to  the  extremities  of 
his  frame,  and  his  nerve-force  had  to  travel  through 
dry  ground  a  long  distance  before  his  muscles  were 
obedient  to  his  will.  His  structure  was  loose  and 
leathery ;  his  body  was  shrunk  and  shriveled,  having 
dark  skin,  dark  hair — looking  woe-struck.  The  whole 
man,  body  and  mind,  worked  slowly,  creakingly,  as  if  it 
needed  oiling.  Physically,  he  was  a  very  powerful  man, 
lifting  with  ease  four  hundred  or  six  hundred  pounds. 


WM.     ff.     HERN  DON.  527 

His  mind  was  like  his  body,  and  worked  slowly  but 
strongly.  When  he  walked,  he  moved  cautiously  but 
firmly,  his  long  arms  and  hands  on  them,  hanging  like 
giant's  hands,  swung  down  by  his  side.  He  walked  with 
even  tread,  the  inner  sides  of  his  feet  being  parallel.  He 
put  the  whole  foot  flat  down  on  the  ground  at  once,  not 
landing  on  the  heel ;  he  likewise  lifted  his  foot  all  at  once, 
not  rising  from  the  toe,  and  hence  he  had  no  spring  to  his 
walk.  He  had  economy  of  fall  and  lift  of  foot,  though  he 
had  no  spring  or  apparent  ease  of  motion  in  his  tread. 
He  walked  undulatory,  up  and  down,  catching  and  pocket- 
ing tire,  weariness  and  pain,  all  up  and  down  his  person, 
preventing  them  from  locating.  The  first  opinion  of  a 
stranger,  or  a  man  who  did  not  observe  closely,  was  that 
his  walk  implied  shrewdness,  cunning — a  tricky  man  ;  but 
his  was  the  walk  of  caution  and  firmness.  In  sitting 
down  on  a  common  chair  he  was  no  taller  than  ordinary 
men.  His  legs  and  arms  were  abnormally,  unnaturally  long, 
and  in  undue  proportion  to  the  balance  of  his  body.  It 
was  only  when  he  stood  up  that  he  loomed  above  other  men. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  head  was  lono-  and  tall  from  the  base 

O 

of  the  brain  and  from  the  eyebrows.  His  head  ran  back- 
wards, his  forehead  rising  as  it  ran  back  at  a  low 
angle,  like  Clay's,  and,  unlike  Webster's,  almost  per- 
pendicular. The  size  of  his  hat,  measured  at  the  hat- 
ter's block,  was  7^,  his  head  being,  from  ear  to  ear,  61^ 
inches,  and  from  the  front  to  the  back  of  the  brain  8 
inches.  Thus  measured,  it  was  not  below  the  medium 
size.  His  forehead  was  narrow  but  high  ;  his  hair  was 
dark,  almost  black,  and  lay  floating  where  his  fingers  or 
the  winds  left  it,  piled  up  at  random.  His  cheek-bones 


523  WM.    H.    HERN  DON. 

were  high,  sharp,  and  prominent ;  his  eyebrows  heavy 
and  prominent  ;  his  jaws  were  long,  upcurved  and  heavy  ; 
his  nose  was  large,  long  and  blunt,  a  little  awry  towards 
the  right  eye ;  his  chin  was  long,  sharp  and  upcurved  ; 
his  eyebrows  cropped  out  like  a  huge  rock  on  the  brow 
of  a  hill ;  his  face  was  long,  sallow  and  cadaverous, 
shrunk,  shriveled,  wrinkled  and  dry,  having  here  and 
there  a  hair  on  the  surface ;  his  cheeks  were  leathery  ; 
his  ears  were  large,  and  ran  out  almost  at  right  angles 
from  his  head,  caused  partly  by  heavy  hats  and  partly  by 
nature ;  his  lower  lip  was  thick,  hanging,  and  under- 
curved,  while  his  chin  reached  for  the  lip  upcurved  ;  his 
neck  was  neat  and  trim,  his  head  being  well  balanced  on 
it ;  there  was  the  ione  mole  on  the  right  cheek,  and 
Adam's  apple  on  his  throat. 

Thus  stood,  walked,  acted  and  looked  Abraham 
Lincoln.  He  was  not  a  pretty  man  by  any  means,  nor 
was  he  an  ugly  one ;  he  was  a  homely  man,  careless  of 
his  looks,  plain-looking  and  plain-acting.  He  had  no 
pomp,  display  or  dignity,  so-called.  He  appeared  simple 
in  his  carriage  and  bearing.  He  was  a  sad-looking  man  ; 
his  melancholy  dripped  from  him  as  he  walked.  His  ap- 
parent gloom  impressed  his  friends,  and  created  a 
sympathy  for  him — one  means  of  his  great  success.  He 
was  gloomy,  abstracted,  and  joyous — rather,  humorous— 
by  turns.  I  do  not  think  he  knew  what  real  joy  was  for 
many  years. 

Mr.  Lincoln  sometimes  walked  our  streets  cheerily, 
— good-humoredly,  perhaps  joyously — and  then  it  was, 
on  meeting  a  friend,  he  cried  :  "  How  d'y  ?"  clasping  one 
of  his  friend's  hand  in  both  of  his,  giving  a  good  hearty 


WM.     H.     HERN  DON.  529 

soul-welcome.  Of  a  winter's  morning,  he  might  be  seen 
stalking  and  stilting  it  towards  the  market  house,  basket 
on  arm,  his  old  gray  shawl  wrapped  around  his  neck,  his 
little  Willie  or  Tad  running  along  at  his  heels,  asking  a 
thousand  little  quick  questions,  which  his  father  heard 
not,  not  even  then  knowing  that  little  Willie  or  Tad  was 
there,  so  abstracted  was  he.  When  he  thus  met  a  friend, 
he  said  that  something  put  him  in  mind  of  a  story  which 
he  heard  in  Indiana  or  elsewhere,  and  tell  it  he  would, 
and  there  was  no  alternative  but  to  listen. 

Thus,  I  say,  stood  and  walked  and  looked  this 
singular  man.  He  was  odd,  but  when  that  gray  eye 
and  face  and  every  feature  were  lit  up  by  the  inward  soul 
in  fires  of  emotion,  then  it  was  that  all  these  apparently 
ugly  features  sprang  into  organs  of  beauty,  or  sunk 
themselves  into  a  sea  of  inspiration  that  sometimes 
flooded  his  face.  Sometimes  it  appeared  to  me  that 
Lincoln's  soul  was  just  fresh  from  the  presence  of  its 
Creator. 


I  have  asked  the  friends  and  foes  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
alike,  what  they  thought  of  his  perceptions.  One 
gentleman  of  undoubted  ability,  and  free  from  all  partial- 
ity or  prejudice,  said  :  "  Mr.  Lincoln's  perceptions  are 
slow,  a  little  perverted,  if  not  somewhat  distorted  and 
diseased."  If  the  meaning  of  this  is  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
saws  things  from  a  peculiar  angle  of  his  being,  and  from 
*  this  was  susceptible  to  Nature's  impulses,  and  that  he  so 
expressed  himself,  then  I  have  no  objection  to  what  is 
said.  Otherwise,  I  dissent.  Mr.  Lincoln's  perceptions 

34 


530  WM.     H.     HERNDON. 

were  slow,  cold,  precise,  and  exact.  Everything  came  to 
him  in  its  precise  shape  and  color.  To  some  men  the 
world  of  matter  and  of  man  comes  ornamented  with 
beauty,  life,  and  action,  and  hence  more  or  less  false  and 
inexact.  No  lurking  illusion  or  other  error,  false  in 
itself,  and  clad  for  the  moment  in  robes  of  splendor, 
ever  passed  undetected  or  unchallenged  over  the 
threshold  of  his  mind — that  point  that  divides  vision 
from  the  realm  and  home  of  thought.  Names  to  him 
were  nothing,  and  titles  naught — assumption  always 
standing  back  abashed  at  his  cold,  intellectual  glare. 
Neither  his  perceptions  nor  intellectual  vision  were  per- 
verted, distorted,  or  diseased.  He  saw  all  things  through 
a  perfect  mental  lens.  There  was  no  diffraction  or  re- 
fraction  there.  He  was  not  impulsive,  fanciful  or  im- 
aginative, but  cold,  calm,  precise  and  exact.  He  threw 
his  whole  mental  light  around  the  object,  and  in  time, 
substance,  and  quality  stood  apart ;  form  and  color  took 
their  appropriate  places,  and  all  was  clear  and  exact 
in  his  mind.  His  fault,  if  any,  was  that  he  saw  things 
less  than  they  really  were ;  less  beautiful  and  more 
frigid.  In  his  mental  view  he  crushed  the  unreal,  the 
inexact,  the  hollow  and  the  sham.  He  saw  things  in 
rigidity  rather  than  in  vital  action.  Here  was  his 
fault.  He  saw  what  no  man  could  dispute ;  but  he 
failed  to  see  what  might  have  been  seen.  To  some 
minds  the  world  is  all  life,  a  soul  beneath  the  material ; 
but  to  Mr.  Lincoln  no  life  was  individual  or  universal  that 
did  not  manifest  itself  to  him.  His  mind  was  hisstandard. 
His  perceptions  were  cool,  persistent,  pitiless  in  pursuit  of 
the  truth.  No  error  went  undetected,  and  no  falsehood 


WW.     H.    HERN  DON.  531 

unexposed,  if  he  once  was  aroused  in  search  of  truth. 
If  his  perceptions  were  perverted,  distorted,  and  dis- 
eased, would  to  Heaven  that  more  minds  were  so. 

*  *  *  *  *  •*•#  *  * 
The  true  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Lincoln  has  not  been  seen 
by  his  various  biographers ;  or,  if  seen,  they  have  failed 
wofully  to  give  it  that  prominence  which  it  deserves.  It 
*is  said  that  Newton  saw  an  apple  fall  to  the  ground  from 
a  tree,  and  beheld  the  law  of  the  universe  in  that  fall ; 
Shakespeare  saw  human  nature  in  the  laugh  of  a  man  ; 
Professor  Owen  saw  the  animal  in  its  claw  ;  and  Spencer 
saw  the  evolution  of  the  universe  in  the  growth  of  a  seed. 
Nature  was  suggestive  to  all  these  men.  Mr.  Lincoln  no 
less  saw  philosophy  in  a  story,  and  a  schoolmaster  in  a 
joke.  No  man,  no  men,  saw  nature,  fact,  thing,  or  man 
from  his  stand-point.  His  was  a  new  and  original  posi- 
tion, which  was  always  suggesting,  hinting  something  to 
him.  Nature,  insinuations,  hints  and  suggestions  were 
new,  fresh,  original  and  odd  to  him.  The  world,  fact, 
man,  principle,  all  had  their  powers  of  suggestion  to  his 
susceptible  soul.  They  continually  put  him  in  mind  of 
something.  He  was  odd,  fresh,  new,  original,  and  pecu- 
liar, for  this  reason,  that  he  was  a  new,  odd,  and  original 
creation  and  fact.  He  had  keen  susceptibilities  to  the 
hints  and  suggestions  of  nature,  which  always  put  him  in 
mind  of  something  known  or  unknown.  Hence  his 
power  and  tenacity  of  what  is  called  association  of  ideas 
must  have  been  great.  His  memory  was  tenacious  and 
strong.  His  susceptibility  to  all  suggestions  and  hints 
enabled  him  at  will  to  call  up  readily  the  associated  and 
classified  fact  and  idea. 


53*  WM,     H.     HERN  DON. 

As  an  evidence  of  this,  especially  peculiar  to  Mn 
Lincoln,  let  me  ask  one  question.  Were  Mr.  Lincoln's 
expression  and  language  odd  and  original,  standing  out 
peculiar  from  those  of  all  other  men  ?  What  does  this 
imply  ?  Oddity  and  originality  of  vision  as  well  as  ex- 
pression; and  what  is  expression  in  words  and  human 
language,  but  a  telling  of  what  we  see,  defining  the  idea 
arising  from  and  created  by  vision  and  view  in  us  ?* 
Words  and  language  are  but  the  counterparts  of  the  idea 
— the  other  half  of  the  idea ;  they  are  but  the  stinging, 
hot,  heavy,  leaden  bullets  that  drop  from  the  mold ;  and 
what  are  they  in  a  rifle  with  powder  stuffed  behind  them 
and  fire  applied,  but  an  embodied  force  pursuing  their 
object  ?  So  are  words  an  embodied  power  feeling  for 
comprehension  in  other  minds.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  often 
perplexed  to  give  expression  to  his  ideas :  first,  because 
he  was  not  master  of  the  English  language :  and, 
secondly,  because  there  were  no  words  in  it  containing 
the  coloring,  shape,  exactness,  power,  and  gravity  of  his 
ideas.  He  was  frequently  at  a  loss  fora  word,  and  hence 
was  compelled  to  resoflt  to  stories,  maxims,  and  jokes  to 
embody  his  idea,  that  it  might  be  comprehended!.  So 
true  was  this  peculiar  mental  vision  of  his,  that  though 
mankind  has  been  gathering,  arranging,  and  classifying 
facts  for  thousands  of  years,  Lincoln's  peculiar  stand- 
point could  give  him  no  advantage  of  other  men's  labor. 
Hence  he  tore  up  to  the  deep  foundations  all  arrange- 
ments of  facts,  and  coined  and  arranged  new  plans  to 
govern  himself.  He  was  compelled,  from  his  peculiar 
mental  organization,  to  do  this.  His  labor  was  great, 
continuous,  patient  and  all-enduring. 


WM.    H.    HERN  DON.  533 

The  truth  about  this  whole  matter  is  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  read  less  and  thought  more  than  any  man  in  his 
sphere  in  America.  No  man  can  put  his  ringer  on  any 
great  book  written  in  the  last  or  present  century  that  he 
read.  When  young  he  read  the  Bible,  and  when  of  age 
he  read  Shakespeare.  This  latter  book  was  scarcely  ever 
out  of  his  mind.  Mr.  Linaoln  is  acknowledged  to  have 
been  a  great  man,  but  the  question  is,  what  made  him 
great  ?  I  repeat,  that  he  read  less  and  thought  more 
than  any  man  of  his  standing  in  America,  if  not  in  the 
world.  He  possessed  originality  and  power  of  thought 
in  an  eminent  degree.  He  was  cautious,  cool,  concen- 
trated, with  continuity  of  reflection ;  was  patient  and 
enduring.  These  are  some  of  the  grounds  of  his  wonder- 
ful success. 

* 

Not  only  was  nature,  man,  fact  and  principle  sug- 
gestive to  Mr.  Lincoln,  not  only  had  he  accurate  and 
exact  perceptions,  but  he  was  causative,  i.e.,  his  mind 
ran  back  behind  all  facts,  things  and  principles  to  their 
origin,  history  and  first  cause,  to  that  point  where  forces 
act  at  once  as  effect  and  caused  He  would  stop  and 
stand  in  the  street  and  analyze  a  machine.  He  would 
whittle  things  to  a  point,  and  then  count  the  numberless 
inclined  planes,  and  their  pitch,  making  the  point.  Mas- 
tering and  defining  this,  he  would  then  cut  that  point 
back,  and  get  a  broad  transverse  section  of  his  pine 
stick,  and  peel  and  define  that.  Clocks,  omnibuses  and 
language,  paddle-wheels  and  idioms,  never  escaped  his 
observation  and  analysis.  Before  he  could  form  any  idea 
of  anything,  before  he  would  express  his  opinion  on  any 
subject,  he  must  know  it  in  origin  and  history,  in  sub- 


534  WM.     H.    HERNDON. 

stance  and  quality,  in  magnitude  and  gravity.  He  must 
know  his  subject  inside  and  outside,  upside  and  down- 
side. He  searched  his  own  mind  and  nature  thoroughly, 
as  I  have  often  heard  him  say.  He  must  analyze  a  sen- 
sation, an  idea,  and  words,  and  run  them  back  to  their 
origin,  history,  purpose  and  destiny.  He  was  most  em- 
phatically a  remorseless  analyzer  of  facts,  things  and 
principles.  When  all  these  processes  had  been  well  and 
thoroughly  gone  through,  he  could  form  an  opinion  and 
express  it,  but  no  sooner.  He  had  no  faith.  "  Say  so's" 
he  had  no  respect  for,  coming  though  they  might  from 
tradition,  power  or  authority. 

All  things,  facts  and  principles  had  to  run  through 
his  crucible  and  be  tested  by  the  fires  of  his  analytic 
mind  ;  and  hence,  when  he  did  speak,  his  utterances  rang 
out  gold-like,  quick,  keen  and  current  upon  the  counters 
of  the  understanding.  He  reasoned  logically,  through 
analogy  and  comparison.  All  opponents  dreaded  him  in 
his  originality  of  idea,  condensation,  definition  and  force 
of  expression,  and  woe  be  to  the  man  who  hugged  to  his 
bosom  a  secret  error  if  Mr.  Lincoln  got  on  the  chase  of 
it.  I  say,  woe  to  him !  Time  could  hide  the  error  in 
no  nook  or  corner  of  space  in  which  he  would  not  detect 
and  expose  it. 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

Though  Mr.  Lincoln  had  accurate  perceptions, 
though  nature  was  extremely  suggestive  to  him,  though 
he  was  a  profound  thinker  as  well  as  an  analyzer,  still 
his  judgments  and  opinions  formed  upon  minor  matters 
were  often  childish.  I  have  sometimes  asked  prominent, 
talented  and  honest  men  in  this  and  other  States  for 


WM.     H.     HERN  DON.  535 

their  manly  opinion  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  judgments.  I  did 
this  to  confirm  or  overthrow  my  own  opinions  on  this 
point.  Their  answers  were  that  his  judgments  were 
poor.  But  now,  what  do  we  understand  by  the  word 
"judgments"?  It  is  not  reason,  it  is  not  will,  nor 
is  it  understanding  ;  but  it  is  the  judging  faculty — that 
capacity  or  power  that  forms  opinions  and  decides  on 
the  fitness,  beauty,  harmony  and  appropriateness  of 
things  under  all  circumstances  and  surroundings,  quickly, 
wisely,  accurately.  Had  Mr.  Lincoln  this  quality  of 
mind?  I  think  not.  His  mind  was  like  his  body,  and 
worked  slowly. 

****** 

One  portion  of  mankind  maintained  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  weak-minded,  and  they  look  at  him  only  from 
the  stand-point  of  his  judgments.  Another  class  main- 
tain that  he  was  a  great,  deep,  profound  man  in  his  judg- 
ments. Do  these  two  classes  understand  themselves  ? 
Both  views  cannot  be  correct.  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  was 
slow,  angular,  and  ponderous,  rather  than  quick  and 
finely  discriminating,  and  in  time  his  great  powers  of 
reason  on  cause  and  effect,  on  creation  and  relation,  on 
substance  and  on  truth,  would  form  a  proposition,  an 
opinion,  wisely  and  well — that  no  human  being  can  deny. 
Whan  his  mind  could  not  grasp  premises  from  which  to 
argue  he  was  weaker  than  a  child* because  he  had  none 
of  the  child's  intuitions — the  soul's  quick,  bright  flash 
over  scattered  and  unarranged  facts. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  peculiar  man,  having  a  peculiar 
mind  ;  he  was  gifted  with  a  peculiarity,  namely,  a  new 
look-out  on  nature.  Everything  had  to  be  newly  created 


536  WM.     H.     HERN  DON. 

for  him — facts  newly  gathered,  newly  arranged,  and  newly 
classed.  He  had  no  faith,  as  already  expressed.  In 
order  to  believe  he  must  see  and  feel,  and  thrust  his 
hand  into  the  place.  He  must  taste,  smell  and  handle 
before  he  had  faith,  i.e.,  belief.  Such  a  mind  as  this  must 
act  slowly,  must  have  its  time.  His  forte  and  power  lay 
in  his  love  of  digging  out  for  himself  and  hunting  up  for 
his  own  mind  its  own  food,  to  be  assimilated  unto  itself ; 
and  then  in  time  he  could  and  would  form  opinions  and 
conclusions  that  no  human  power  could  overthrow. 
They  were  as  irresistible  as  iron  thunder,  as  powerful  as 
logic  embodied  ih  mathematics. 

I  have  watched  men  closely  in  reference  to  their 
approaches  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  Those  who  approached  him 
on  his  judgment  side  treated  him  tenderly — sometimes 
respectfully,  but  always  as  a  weak-minded  man.  This 
class  of  men  take  the  judgment  as  the  standard  of  the 
mind.  I  have  seen  another  class  approach  him  on  his 
reason  side,  and  they  always  crouched  low  down  and 
truckled,  as  much  as  to  say,  "great,"  "grand,"  "omnipo- 
tent." Both  these  classes  were  correct.  One  took  judgment 
as  the  standard  of  the  man,  and  the  other  took  reason. 
Yet  both  classes  were  wrong  in  this — they  sunk  out  of 
view  one  side  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  A  third  class  knew  him 
well,  and  always  treated  him  with  human  respect:! not 
that  awe  and  reverence1  with  which  we  regard  the  Supreme 
Being  ;  not  that  supercilious  haughtiness  which  greatness 
shows  to  littleness.  Each  will  please  to  examine  itself, 
and  then  judge  of  what  I  say.  I  have  approached  Mr. 
Lincoln  on  all  sides,  and  treated  him  according  to  the 
angle  approached. 


WM.    H.    HERNDON.  537 

An  additional  question  naturally  suggests  itself  here, 
and  it  is  this  :  Had  Mr.  Lincoln  great,  good  common 
sense  ?  Different  persons,  of  equal  capacity  and  honesty, 
hold  different  views  on  this  question — one  class  answer- 
ing in  the  affirmative,  and  the  other  in  the  negative. 

These  various  opinions  necessarily  spring  out  of  the 
question  just  discussed.  If  the  true  test  is  that  a  man 
shall  quickly,  wisely,  and  well  judge  the  rapid  rush  and 
whirl  of  human  transactions,  as  accurately  as  though 
indefinite  time  and  proper  conditions  were  at  his  disposal, 
then  I  am  compelled  to  follow  the  logic  of  things,  and  say 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  more  than  ordinary  common 
sense.  The  world,  men  and  their  actions  must  be  judged 
as  they  rush  and  pass  along.  They  will  not  wait  on  us ; 
will  not  stay  for  our  logic  and  analysis ;  they  must  be 
seized  as  they  run.  We  all  our  life  act  on  the  moment. 
Mr.  Lincoln  knew  himself,  and  never  trusted  his  dollar 
or* his  fame  on  his  casual  opinions  ;  he  never  acted  hastily 
on  great  matters. 

*  *  *  #  * 

Mr.  Lincoln  very  well  knew  that  the  great  leading 
law  of  human  nature  was  motive.  He  reasoned  all  ideas 
of  a  disinterested  action  from  my  mind.  I  used  to  hold 
that  an  action  could  be  pure,  disinterested,  and  holy,  free 
from  fell  selfishness,  but  he  divested  me  of  that  delusion. 
His  idea  was  that  all  human  actions  were  caused  by 
motives,  and  that  at  the  bottom  of  those  motives  was  self. 
He  defied  me  to  act  without  a  motive  and  unselfishly  ; 
and  when  I  did  the  act  and  told  him  of  it,  he  analyzed 
and  sifted  it,  and  demonstrated  beyond  the  possibility  of 
controversy  that  it  was  altogether  selfish.  Though  he 


538  WM.     H.     HERN  DON. 

was  a  profound  analyzer  of  the  laws  of  human  nature,  still 
he  had  no  idea  of  the  peculiar  motives  of  the  particular 
individual.  He  could  not  well  discriminate  in  human 
nature.  He  knew  but  little  of  the  play  of  the  features  as 
seen  in  "the  human  face  divine."  He  could  not  distin- 
guish between  the  paleness  of  anger  and  the  crimson 
tint  of  modesty.  He  could  not  determine  what  each  play 
of  the  features  indicated. 

***** 
The  great  predominating  elements  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
peculiar  character,  were :  First,  his  great  capacity  and 
power  of 'reason  J  secondly,  his  excellent  understanding; 
thirdly,  an  exalted  idea  of  the  sense  of  right  and  equity  ; 
and,  fourthly,  his  intense  veneration  of  what  was  true  and 
good.  His  reason  ruled  despotically  all  other  faculties  and 
qualities  of  his  mind.  His  conscience  and  heart  were 
ruled  by  it.  His  conscience  was  ruled  by  one  faculty — 
reason.  His  heart  was  ruled  by  two  faculties — reason 
and  conscience.  I  know  it  is  generally  believed  that  Mr. 
Lincoln's  heart,  his  love  and  kindness,  his  tenderness  and 
benevolence,  were  his  ruling  qualities ;  but  this  opinion  is 
erroneous  in  every  particular.  First,  as  to  his  reason. 
He  dwelt  in  the  mind,  not  in  the  conscience,  and  not  in 
the  heart  He  lived  and  breathed  and  acted  from  his 
reason — the  throne  of  logic  and  the  home  of  principle, 
the  realm  of  Deity  in  man.  It  is  from  this  point  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  must  be  viewed.  His  views  were  correct 
and  original.  He  was  cautious  not  to  be  deceived  ;  he 
was  patient  and  enduring.  He  had  concentration  and 
great  continuity  of  thought ;  he  had  a  profound  analytic 
power ;  his  visions  were  clear,  and  he  was  emphatically 


WM.     //.     HERN  DON.  539 

the  master  of  statement.  His  pursuit  of  the  truth  was 
indefatigable,  terrible.  He  reasoned  from  his  well-chosen 
principles  with  such  clearness,  force,  and  compactness, 
that  the  tallest  intellects  in  the  land  bowed  to  him  with 
respect.  He  was  the  strongest  man  I  ever  saw,  looking 
at  him  from  the  stand-point  of  his  reason — the  jhrone  of 
his  logic.  He  came  down  from  that  height  with  an  irre- 
sistible and  crushing  force.  His  printed  speeches  will 
prove  this  ;  but  his  speeches  before  courts,  especially  be- 
fore the  Supreme  Courts  of  the  State  and  Nation,  would 
demonstrate  it  :  unfortunately,  none  of  them  have  been 
preserved.  Here  he  demanded  time  to  think  and  pre- 
pare. The  office  of  reason  is  to  determine  the  truth. 
Truth  is  the  power  of  reason — the  child  of  reason.  He 
loved  and  idolized  truth  for  its  own  sake.  It  was 
reason's  food. 

Conscience,  the  second  great  quality  and  forte  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  character,  is  that  faculty  which  loves  the 
just :  its  office  is  justice ;  right  and  equity  are  its  correla- 
tives. It  decides  upon  all  acts  of  all  people  at  all  times. 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  deep,  broad,  living  conscience.  His 
great  reason  told  him  what  was  true,  good  and  bad,  right, 
wrong,  just  or  .unjust,  and  his  conscience  echoed  back  its 
decision  ;  and  it  was  from  this  point  that  he  acted  and 
spoke  and  wove  his  character  and  fame  among  us.  His 
conscience  ruled  his  heart ;  he  was  always  just  before  he 
was  gracious.  This  was  his  motto,  his  glory  :  and  this  is 
as  it  should  be.  It  cannot  be  truthfully  said  of  any 
'mortal  man  that  he  was  always  just.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
not  always  just ;  but  his  great  general  life  was.  It  follows 
that  if  Mr.  Lincoln  had  great  reason  and  great  con- 


WM.    H.    HERN  DON. 


science,  he  was  an  honest  man.  His  great  and  general 
life  was  honest,  and  he  was  justly  and  rightfully  entitled 
to  the  appellation,  "  Honest  Abe."  Honesty  was  his 
great  polar  star. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  also  a  good  understanding  ;  that 
is,  the  faculty  that  understands  and  comprehends  the 
exact  state  of  things,  their  near  and  remote  relation. 
The  understanding  does  not  necessarily  inquire  for  the 
reason  of  things.  I  must  here  repeat  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  an  odd  and  original  man  ;  he  lived  by  himself  and 
out  of  himself.  He  could  not  absorb.  He  was  a  very 
sensitive  man,  unobtrusive  and  gentlemanly,  and  often  hid 
himself  in  the  common  mass  of  men,  in  order  to  prevent 
the  discovery  of  his  individuality.  He  had  no  insulting 
egotism,  and  no  pompous  pride  ;  no  haughtiness,  and  no 
aristocracy.  He  was  not  indifferent,  however,  to  appro- 
bation and  public  opinion.  He  was  not  an  upstart,  and 
had  no  insolence.  He  was  a  meek,  quiet,  unobtrusive 
gentleman.  These  qualities  of  his  nature  merged  some- 
what his  identities.  Read  Mr.  Lincoln's  speeches, 
letters,  messages  and  proclamations,  read  his  whole  record 
in  his  actual  life,  and  you  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that  he 
had  good  understanding.  He  understood  and  fully  com- 
prehended himself,  and  what  he  did  and  why  he  did  it, 
better  than  most  living  men. 


There  are  contradictory  opinions  in  reference  to 
Mr.  Lincoln's  heart  and  humanity.  One  opinion  is  that 
he  was  cold  and  obdurate,  and  the  other  opinion  is  that 
he  was  warm  and  affectionate.  I  have  shown  you  that 


WM.     H.     HERN  DON.  541 

Mr.  Lincoln  first  lived  and  breathed  upon  the  world  from 
his  head  and  conscience.  I  have  attempted  to  show  you 
that  he  lived  and  breathed  upon  the  world  through  the 
tender  side  of  his  heart,  subject  at  all  times  and  places  to 
the  logic  of  his  reason,  and  to  his  exalted  sense  of  right 
and  equity  ;  namely,  his  conscience.  He  always  held  his 
conscience  subject  to  his  head ;  he  held  his  heart 
always  subject  to  his  head  and  conscience.  His  heart 
was  the  lowest  organ,  the  weakest  of  the  three.  Some 
men  would  reverse  this  order,  and  declare  that  his  heart 
was  his  ruling  organ :  that  always  manifested  itself  with 
love,  regardless  of  truth  and  justice,  right  and  equity. 
The  question  still  is,  was  Mr.  Lincoln  a  cold,  heartless 
man,  or  a  warm,  affectionate  man  ?  Can  a  man  be  a 
warm-hearted  man  who  is  all  head  and  conscience,  or 
nearly  so  ?  What,  in  the  first  place,  do  we  mean  by  a 
warm-hearted  man  ?  Is  it  one  who  goes  out  of  himself 
and  reaches  for  others  spontaneously  because  of  a  deep 
love  of  humanity,  apart  from  equity  and  truth,  and  does 
whar  it  Joes  for  love's  sake  ?  If  so*  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a 
cold  man.  Or,  do  we  mean  that  when  a  human  being, 
man  or  child,  approached  him  in  behalf  of  a  matter  of 
right,  and  that  the  prayer  of  such  an  one  was  granted, 
that  this  is  an  evidence  of  his  love  ?  The  African  was 
enslaved,  his  rights  were  violated,  and  a  principle  was 
violated  in  them.  Rights  imply  obligations  as  well  as 
duties.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  President ;  he  was  in  a  position 
that  made  it  his  duty,  through  his  sense  of  right,  his  love 
of  principle,  his  constitutional  obligations  imposed  upon 
him  by  oath  of  office,  to  strike  the  blow  against  slavery. 
But  did  he  do  it  for  love  ?  He  himself  has  answered  the 


542  WM.     H.    HERNDON. 

question  :  "  I  would  not  free  the  slaves  if  I  could  preserve 
the  Union  without  it."  I  use  this  argument  against  his 
too  enthusiastic  friends.  If  you  mean  that  this  is  love 
for  love's  sake,  then  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  warm-hearted  man 
— not  otherwise.  To  use  a  general  expression,  his 
general  life  was  cold.  He  had,  however,  a  strong  latent 
capacity  to  love ;  but  the  object  must  first  come  as  prin- 
ciple, second  as  right,  and  third  as  lovely.  He  loved 
abstract  humanity  when  it  was  oppressed.  This  was  an 
abstract  love,  not  concrete  in  the  individual,  as  said  by 
some.  He  rarely  used  the  term  love,  yet  was  he  tender 
and  gentle.  He  gave  the  key-note  to  his  own  character, 
when  he  said,  "with  malice  toward  none,  and  with  charity 
for  all,"  he  did  what  he  did.  He  had  no  intense  loves, 
and  hence  no  hates  and  no  malice.  He  had  a  broad 
charity  for  imperfect  man,  and  let  us  imitate  his  great  life 
in  this. 

"  But  was  not  Mr.  Lincoln  a  man  of  great  humanity  ?" 
asks  a  friend  at  my  elbow,  a  little  angrily  ;  to  which  I 
reply,  "  Has  not  that  question  been  answered  already  ?" 
Let  us  suppose  that  it  has  not.  We  must  understand 
each  other.  What  do  you  mean  by  humanity  ?  Do  you 
mean  that  he  had  much  of  human  nature  in  him  ?  If  so, 
I  will  grant  that  he  was  a  man  of  humanity.  Do  you 
mean,  if  the  above  definition  is  unsatisfactory,  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  tender  and  kind  ?  Then  I  agree  with  you. 
But  if  you  mean  to  say  that  he  so  loved  a  man  that  he 
would  sacrifice  truth  and  right  for  him,  for  love's  sake, 
then  he  was  not  a  man  of  humanity.  Do  you  mean  to 
say  that  he  so  loved  man,  for  love's  sake,  that  his  heart 
led  him  out  of  himself,  and  compelled  him  to  go  in  search 


WM.    H.     HERNDON.  543 

of  the  objects  of  his  love,  for  their  sake  ?  He  never,  to 
my  knowledge,  manifested  this  side  of  his  character.  Such 
is  the  law  of  human  nature,  that  it  cannot  be  all  head,  all 
conscience,  and  all  heart  at  one  and  the  same  time  in 
one  and  the  same  person.  Our  Maker  made  it  so,  and 
where  God  through  reason  blazed  the  path,  walk  therein 
boldly.  Mr.  Lincoln's  glory  and  power  lay  in  the  just 
combination  of  head,  conscience,  and  heart,  and  it  is  here 
that  his  fame  must  rest,  or  not  at  all. 

Not  only  were  Mr.  Lincoln's  perceptions  good ;  not 
only  was  nature  suggestive  to  him  ;  not  only  was  he  orig- 
inal and  strong;  not  only  had  he  great  reason,  good 
understanding ;  not  only  did  he  .love  the  true  and  good — 
the  eternal  right;  not  only  was  he  tender  and  kind — but 
in  due  proportion  and  in  legitimate  subordination,  had  he 
a  glorious  combination  of  them  all.  Through  his  percep- 
tions— the  suggestiveness  of  nature,  his  originality  and 
strength  ;  through  his  magnificent  reason,  his  understand- 
ing, his  conscience,  his  tenderness  and  kindness,  his  heart, 
rather  than  love — he  approximated  as  nearly  as  most 
human  beings  in  this  imperfect  state  to  an  embodiment 
of  the  great  moral  principle,  "  Do  unto  others  as  ye  would 

they  should  do  unto  you." 

***** 

There  are  two  opinions — radically  different  opinions 
— expressed  about  Mr.  Lincoln's  will,  by  men  of  equal 
and  much  capacity.  One  opinion  is,  that  he  had  no  will  ; 
and  the  other  is,  that  he  was  all  will — omnipotently  so. 
These  two  opinions  are  loudly  and  honestly  affirmed. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  loved  the  true,  the  right  and  good, 
all  the  great  truths  and  principles  in  the  mind  of  man. 


544  WM.     H-     HERNDON. 

He  loved  the  true,  first ;  the  right,  second  ;  and  the 
good,  the  least.  His  mind  struggled  for  truths  and  his 
soul  for  substances.  Neither  in  his  head  nor  in  his  soul 
did  he  care  for  forms,  methods,  ways — the  non-sub- 
stantial facts  or  things.  He  could  not,  by  his  very 
structure  and  formation  in  mind  and  t}pdy,  care  anything 
about  them.  He  did  not  intensely  or  much  care  for 
particular  individual  man — the  dollar,  property,  rank, 
order,  manners,  or  such  like  things.  He  had  no  avarice 
in  his  nature,  or  other  like  vice.  He  despised,  somewhat, 
all  technical  rules  in  law  and  theology  and  other  sciences 
— mere  forms  everywhere — because  they  were,  as  a 
general  rule,  founded  on  arbitrary  thoughts  and  ideas, 
and  not  on  reason,  truth,  right,  and  the  good.  These 
things  were  without  substance,  and  he  disregarded  them 
because  they  cramped  Iris  original  nature.  What  suited 
a  little,  narrow,  critical  mind  did  not  suit  Mr.  Lincoln's 
any  more  than  a  child's  clothes  did  his  body.  Generally, 
Mr.  Lincoln  could  not  take  any  interest  in  little  local  elec- 
tions— town  meetings.  He  attended  no  gatherings  that 
pertained  to  local  or  other  such-  interests,  saving  general 
political  ones.  He  did  not  care  (because  he  could  not,  in 
his  nature)  who  succeeded  to  the  presidency  of  this  or 
that  Christian  association  or  railroad  convention  ;  who 
made  the  most  money ;  who  was  going  to  Philadelphia, 
when  and  for  what,  and  what  were  the  costs  of  such  a 
trip.  He  could  not  care  who,  among  friends,  got  this 
office  or  that — who  got  to  be  street  inspector  or  alley 
commissioner.  No  principle  of  goodness,  of  truth,  or 
right  was  here.  How  could  he  be  moved  by  such  things 
as  these  ?  He  could  not  understand  why  men  struggled 


WM.     H.     HERNDON.  545 

for  such  things.  He  made  this  remark  to  me  one  day,  I 
think  at  Washington,  "  If  ever  this  free  people — if  this 
Government  itself  is  ever  utterly  demoralized,  it  will  come 
from  this  human  wriggle  and  struggle  for  office  — a  way 
to  live  without  work  ;  from  which  nature  I  am  not  free 
myself."  It  puzzled'him  a  good  deal,  at  Washington,  to 
know  and  to  get  at  the  root  of  this  dread  desire — this 
contagious  disease  of  national  robbery  in  the  nation's 
death-struggle. 

Because  Mr.  Lincoln  could  not  feel  any  interest  in 
such  little  things  as  I  have  spoken  of,  nor  feel  any  par- 
ticular interest  in  the  success  of  those  who  were  thus 
struggling  and  wriggling,  he  was  called  indifferent — nay, 
ungrateful — to  his  friends.  Especially  is  this  the  case 
with  men  who  have  aided  Mr.  Lincoln  all  their  life. 
Mr.  Lincoln  always  and  everywhere  wished  his  friends 
well ;  he  loved  his  friends  and  clung  to  them  tenaciously, 
like  iron  to  iron  welded  ;  yet  he  could  not  be  actively  and 
energetically  aroused  to  the  true  sense  of  his  friends' 
particularly  strong  feelings  of  anxiety  for  office.  From 
this  fact  Mr.  Lincoln  has  been  called  ungrateful.  He 
was  not  an  ungrateful  man  by  any  means.  He  may  have 
been  a  cool  man — a  passive  man  in  his  general  life ;  yet 
he  was  not  ungrateful.  Ingratitude  is  too  positive  a 
word — it  does  not  convey  the  truth.  Mr.  Lincoln  may 
not  have  measured  his  friendly  duties  by  the  applicant's 
hot  desire ;  I  admit  this.  He  was  not  a  selfish  man — 
if  by  selfishness  is  meant  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  do  any 
act,  even  to  promote  himself  to  the  presidency,  if  by 
that  act  any  human  being  was  wronged.  If  it  is  said 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  preferred  Abraham  Lincoln  to 

35 


546  WM.    H.     HERN  DON. 

any  one  else,  in  the  pursuit  of  his  ambitions,  and  that, 
because  of  this,  he  was  a  selfish  man,  then  I  can  see  no  ob- 
jections to  such  an  idea,  for  this  is  universal  human  nature. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind 
acted  logically,  cautiously,  and  slowly.  Now,  having 
stated  the  above  facts,  the  question  of  his  will  and  its 
power  is  easily  solved.  Be  it  remembered  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln cared  nothing  for  simple  facts,  manners,  modes, 
ways,  and  such  like  things.  Be  it  remembered  that  he 
did  care  for  truth,  right,  for  principle,  for  all  that  pertains 
to  the  good.  In  relation  to  simple  facts,  unrelated  to 
substance,  forms,  rules,  methods,  ways,  manners,  he  cared 
nothing ;  and  if  he  could  be  aroused,  he  would  do  any- 
thing for  anybody  at  any  time,  as  well  foe  as  friend. 
As  a  politician  he  would  courteously  grant  all  facts  and 
forms — all  non-essential  things — to  his  opponent.  He 
did  so  because  he  did  not  care  for  them ;  they  were 
rubbish,  husks,  trash.  On  the  question  of  substance,  he 
hung  and  clung  with  all  his  might.  On  questions  of 
truth,  justice,  right,  the  good,  on  principle,  his  will  was 
as  firm  as  steel  and  as  tenacious  as  iron.  It  was  as  firm, 
solid,  real,  vital,  and  tenacious  as  an  idea  on  which  the 
world  hinges  or  hangs.  Ask  Mr.  Lincoln  to  do  a  wrong 
thing,  and  he  would  scorn  the  request ;  ask  him  to  do  an 
unjust  thing,  and  he  would  cry :  "  Begone !"  ask  him  to 
sacrifice  his  convictions  of  the  truth,  and  his  soul  would 
indignantly  exclaim :  "  The  world  perish  first  !" 

Such  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  will.  On  manners  and  such 
'like  things,  he  was  pliable.  On  questions  of  right  and 
substance,  he  was  as  firm  as  a  rock.  One  of  these  classes 


WM.     H.     HERN  DON.  547 

of  men  look  at  Mr.  Lincoln  from  the  stand-point  of  things 
non-essential,  and  the  other  looks  at  him  from  the  stand- 
point of  substance,  rejecting  forms.  Hence  the  difference. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  firm,  unyielding  will,  when,  in 
human  transactions,  it  was  necessary  to  be  so,  and  not 
otherwise.  At  one  moment  Mr.  Lincoln  was  as  pliable  and 
expansive  as  gentle  air,  and  at  the  next  moment  he  was  as 
biting,  firm,  tenacious,  and  unyielding  as  gravity  itself. 

Thus  I  have  traced  Mr.  Lincoln  through  his  percep- 
tions, his  suggestiveness,  his  judgments,  and  his  four 
great  predominant  qualities,  namely — his  powers  of 
reason,  his  great  understanding,  his  conscience,  and  his 
heart.  I  assert  that  Mr.  Lincoln  lived  in  the  head.  He 
loved  the  truth  ;  he  loved  the  eternal  right  and  the  good 
— never  yielding  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  these  to 
any  man  for  any  end. 

All  the  follies  and  wrong  Mr.  Lincoln  ever  fell  into, 
or  committed,  sprang  or  came  out  of  his  weak  points, 
namely,  his  want  of  quick,  sagacious,  intuitive  judgment 
— his  want  of  quick,  sagacious,  intuitive  knowledge  of  the 
play  and  meaning  of  the  features  of  men  as  written  on 
the  face — his  tenderness  and  mercy,  and,  lastly,  his 
utterly  unsuspecting  nature.  He  was  deeply  and  seriously 
honest  himself,  and  assumed  that  others  were  so  organ- 
ized. He  never  suspected  men.  These,  with  other  de- 
fects of  his  nature,  caused  all  his  follies  and  wrongs,  if  he 
ever  had  any  of  either. 

All  the  wise  and  good  things  Mr.  Lincoln  ever  did, 
sprang  or  came  out  of  his  great  reason,  his  conscience, 
his  understanding,  and  his  heart  ;  his  love  of  truth,  right, 


548  WM.     H.     HERNDON. 

and  the  good.  I  am  speaking  now  of  his  particular  and 
individual  faculties  and  qualities,  not  their  combination^ 
nor  the  result  of  wise  or  unwise  combinations.  Each 
man  and  woman  must  form  his  or  her  own  estimate  of  the 
man  in  the  mind.  Run  out  these  facts,  qualities,  and 
faculties,  and  see  what  they  must  produce.  For  instance, 
a  tender  heart ;  a  wise,  strong  reason  ;  a  good  understand- 
ing, an  exalted  conscience,  a  love  of  the  good,  must,  in 
such  combination,  practically  applied,  produce  a  man  of 
great  humanity. 

Take  another  illustration  in  the  combination  of  his 
faculties  and  qualities.  Mr.  Lincoln's  eloquence  lay,  ist, 
in  the  strength  of  his  logical  faculty,  his  supreme  power  of 
reasoning,  his  great  understanding,  and  his  love  of 
principle ;  2d,  in  his  clear,  exact,  and  very  accurate  vision  ; 
3d,  in  his  cool  and  masterly  statement  of  his  principles, 
around  which  the  issues  gather ;  in  the  statement  of  those 
issues,  and  the  grouping  of  the  facts  that  are  to  carry  con- 
viction, aided  by  his  logic,  to  the  minds  of  men  of  every 
grade  of  intelligence.  He  was  so  clear  that  he  could  not 
be  misunderstood  nor  misrepresented.  He  stood  square 
and  bolt  upright  to  his  convictions,  and  formed  by  them 
his  thoughts  and  utterances.  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  was  not 
a  wide,  deep,  broad,  generalizing,  and  comprehensive  mind, 
nor  versatile,  quick,  bounding  here  and  there,  as  emer- 
gencies demanded  it.  His  mind  was  deep,  enduring,  and 
strong,  running  in  deep  iron  grooves,  with  flanges  on  its 
wheels.  His  mind  was  not  keen,  sharp,  and  subtile ;  it 
was  deep,  exact,  and  strong. 

Whatever  of  life,  vigor,  force,  and  pcwer  of  eloquence 


WM.     H.     HERN  DON.  549 

the  whole  of  the  above  qualities,  or  a  wise  combination, 
will  give ;  whatever  there  is  in  a  fair,  manly,  honest  and 
impartial  administration  of  justice,  under  law,  to  all  men 
at  all  times — through  these  qualities  and  capabilities 
given,  never  deviating  ;  whatever  there  is  in  a  strong  will 
in  the  right,  governed  by  tenderness  and  mercy ;  what- 
ever there  is  in  toil  and  a  sublime  patience ;  whatever 
there  is  in  particular  faculties,  or  a  wise  combination  of 
them  — not  forgetting  his  weak  points — working  wisely, 
sagaciously,  and  honestly,  openly  and  fairly ;  I  say, 
whatever  there  is  in  these,  or  a  combination  of  them, 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  is  justly  entitled  to  in  all  the  walks  of 
life.  These  limit,  bound  and  define  him  as  statesman, 
orator,  as  an  Executive  of  the  nation,  as  a  man  of  human- 
ity, a  good  man,  and  a  gentleman.  These  limit,  bound 
and  define  him  every  way,  in  all  the  ways  and  walks  of 
life.  He  is  under  his  law  and  his  nature,  and  he  never 
can  get  out  of  it. 

This  man,  this  long,  bony,  wiry,  sad  man,  floated  into 
our  county  in  1831,  in  a  frail  canoe,  down  the  north  fork 
of  the  Sangamon  River,  friendless,  penniless,  powerless 
and  alone — begging  for  work  in  this  city — ragged, 
struggling  for  the  common  necessaries  of  life.  This 
man,  this  peculiar  man,  left  us  in  1861,  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  backed  by  friends  and  power,  by 
fame,  and  all  human  force  ;  and  it  is  well  to  inquire 
how. 

To  sum  up,  let  us  say,  here  is  a  sensitive,  diffident, 
unobtrusive,  natural-made  gentleman.  His  mind  was 
strong  and  deep,  sincere  and  honest,  patient  and  endur- 


WM.     H.    HERN  DON. 


ing  ;  having  no  vices,  and  having  only  negative  defects, 
with  many  positive  virtues.  His  is  a  strong,  honest, 
sagacious,  manly,  noble  life.  He  stands  in  the  foremost 
rank  of  men  in  all  ages  —  their  equal  —  one  of  the  best 
types  of  this  Christian  civilization. 


SPRINGFIELD,  1882. 


C.     T.     CORLISS.  551 


DEDICATED  TO  THE  PILGRIMS 

VISITING  LINCOLN'S  TOMB  ON  THE  NINETEENTH  ANNIVER- 
SARY   OF    THE     EMANCIPATION     PROCLAMATION, 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS,  SEPTEMBER  22, 
1881. 

WE  have  come,  fellow-men,  of  a  dark-hued  race, 
On  a  pilgrimage  to  the  last  resting-place 
Of  him,  who,  in  life,  was  a  friend  to  the  slave, 
But  whose  mortal  remains  fill  a  martyr's  grave. 

We  have  come  from  the  East,  the  North,  South  and  West, 
A  disenthralled  people,  no  longer  oppressed, 
But  free  as  the  air — as  a  bird  on  the  wing — 
To  this  hallowed  shrine  our  oblations  we  bring. 

Four  millions  of  Freedmen  to-day  swell  the  song ; 
The  blue  vault  of  Heaven  its  echoes  prolong. 
From  the  gulf  to  the  lakes,  from  the  lakes  to  the  sea, 
The  shackles  have  fallen — the  Brother  is  free. 

The  crack  of  the  slave-whip  no  longer  is  heard, 
And  hearts  no  more  sicken,  while  hope  is  deferred ; 
The  slave-pen  and  auction  block  never  shall  be 
Erected  again  in  this  land  of  the  FREE. 

LINCOLN,  the  God-like,  the  friend  of  our  race, 
With  a  stroke  of  his  pen  did  forever  efface 
That  foul  blot,  so  long  our  derision  and  shame, 
And  carved  for  himself  an  immortal  name — 

A  name  that  shall  live  throughout  all  coming  time, 
Unbounded  by  country,  by  language,  or  clime. 
Great-grandchildren's  children,  as  years  roll  around, 
Shall  pilgrimage  make  to  this  hallowed  ground; 


552  C.     T.     CORLISS. 

And  he  whom  we  honored,  what  tho'  he  be  dead, 

What  tho'  the  spirit  forever  has  fled, 

Our  fond  recollection  time  cannot  efface 

Of  LINCOLN,  the  saviour  and  friend  of  our  race. 

He  blushed  when  he  thought  of  the  deep-burning  shame 

That  slavery  brought  on  Columbia's  fair  name, 

And  the  proudest  day  of  his  life  was  when 

He  struck  off  the  chains  from  four  millions  of  men. 

From  the  depths  of  our  hearts,  for  this  priceless  boon, 
Let  songs  of  thanksgiving  our  voices  attune  ; 
Let  gratitude  from  these  dark  temples  arise 
Like  incense  from  altars,  whose  flame  never  dies. 

If  ever  beatified  spirits  descend 

And  with  those  of  mortals  in  harmony  blend, 

The  spirit  of  LINCOLN  is  with  us  to-day, 

To  charm  all  our  fears  and  our  sorrows  away. 

So  long  as  the  Freedman  inhabits  this  zone, 
PHILANTHROPIST,  STATESMAN,  and  SAGE,  all  in  one 
We'll  hail  him,  the  greatest,  the  wisest  and  best, 
Who  sleeps  in  yon  "  windowless  palace  of  Rest." 


INDIANAPOLIS,  1881. 


DAVID    DAVIS.  553 


BORN  in  the  humblest  walks  of  life,  and  unaided  by 
education  or  by  fortune,  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  his 
own  endeavors  and  native  resources,  attained  to  the 
highest  honor  of  the  republic.  He  administered  that 
great  office  so  as  to  win  the  confidence  and  affection  of 
the  American  people.  His  name  will  go  down  through 
all  time  imperishably  associated  with  the  freedom  of  a 
race,  and  as  one  of  the  noblest  champions  of  liberty, 
humanity  and  charity  for  all,  in  war  and  in  peace. 


WASHINGTON,  1880. 


554  HOWARD    CROSS  Y. 


I  LOOK  upon  Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  special  instru- 
ment of  God  (as  was  Washington)  to  meet  a  fear- 
ful crisis  in  our  country's  history.  He  was  a  thorough 
American,  carrying  a  calm  mind  and  tender  heart,  with  a 
firm  sense  of  right,  through  the  stormy  period  of  civil 
strife. 


NEW  YORK,  1880. 


WM.    F.     SMITH.  5.55 


MR.  LINCOLN'S  place  in  the  hearts  of  the  nation 
and  on  the  pages  of  history  is  so  well  fixed,  that 
it  seems  like  presumption  in  one  like  myself  to  write  of 
his  merits.  I  do  it,  however,  because  of  my  great  ad- 
miration for  his  character  and  services.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  his  administration  I  was  very  much  prejudiced 
against  him,  but  I  was  intensely  interested  in  the  success- 
ful termination  of  the  war,  and  that  interest  was  far  above 
all  prejudices  or  friendship  ;  and  so  at  last  I  came  to 
recognize  in  President  Lincoln  a  man  of  extreme  con- 
scientiousness and  patriotism  ;  to  which  was  added  an 
ability  for  the  grave  duties  devolved  upon  him  far  beyond 
that  of  the  most  able  men  known  for  years  in  the  councils 
of  the  nation.  I  have  long  held  to  the  opinion  that  at 
the  close  of  the  war  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  superior  of  his 
generals  in  his  comprehension  of  the  effect  of  strategic 
movements  and  the  proper  method  of  following  up  vic- 
tories to  their  legitimate  conclusions.  Had  he  lived,  I 
have  always  believed  that  the  long  and  bitter  struggle 
over  reconstruction  would  never  have  been  initiated,  and 
that  substantial  peace  and  prosperity  would  have  followed 
the  laying  down  of  arms.  It  would  seem  as  though  the 
two  sections  of  the  country  had  not  been  sufficiently 
punished  by  the  war,  and  that  he  was  removed  from  his 
high  place  arM  that  we  lost  the  power  which  his  character 
had  won  with  the  people,  so  that  a  new  set  of  plagues 
might  be  turned  loose  over  the  land. 


NEW  YORK,  1882. 


556  GEORGE     WASHINGTON    NANCE. 


I  BECAME  acquainted  with  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  year 
1833.  I  moved  from  Kentucky  to  Illinois  about  that 
time,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  then  engaged  in  the  grocery 
business  in  New  Salem,  Illinois.  I  had  previously  re- 
ceived the  impression  that  the  inhabitants  of  New  Salem 
were  perfect  "  ogres  and  hobgoblins,"  and  that  no  one 
ever  attempted  to  pass  through  the  town  without  being 
either  killed  or  robbed.  I  had  some  business  with  a 
friend  living  near  there,  and  on  calling  at  his  house,  I 
learned  that  he  had  gone  to  Salem.  I  scarcely  knew 
whether  it  would  be  safe  to  venture  there  alone  or  not. 
I  at  length  made  up  my  mind  to  try  it,  anyhow.  I 
reached  the  town  without  meeting  with  an  accident ;  but 
as  I  neared  the  center  my  ear  caught  the  sound  of  a  loud 
voice.  I  began  to  tremble  in  my  boots,  for  I  felt  sure  the 
devouring  angel  was  close  at  hand.  I  kept  up  my  cour- 
age as  well  as  I  could,  and  proceeded  in  the  direction 
of  the  voice,  and  a  few  steps  brought  me  to  the  house 
from  whence  the  voice  issued.  There  sat  the  dreaded 
monster  with  a  note-book  open  before  him,  practicing 
music.  He  at  once  recognized  me,  having  been  ac- 
quainted with  two  of  my  brothers,  to  whom  I  bore  a 
close  resemblance ;  he  then  introduced  himself  as  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  We  spent  a  very  pleasant*  evening  to- 
gether, and  some  time  after  this  meeting,  I  had  an  op- 
portunity to  become  better  acquainted  with  him.  The 
family  with  whom  he  was  then  boarding  went  away  on  a 
visit,  and  he  engaged  board  with  a  gentleman  for  whom  I 


GEORGE     WASHINGTON    NANCE.  557 

was  making  a  frame  for  a  house,  and  we  soon  became  in- 
timate friends  and  room-mates.  After  he  became  a  law- 
yer I  engaged  his  services  in  a  law-suit,  and  on  asking 
his  charge,  to  my  surprise  he  only  asked  me  two  dollars 
and  fifty  cents.  I  had  no  idea  of  paying  less  than  ten 
dollars.  When  Mr.  Lincoln  first  became  a  lawyer  he 
was  a  general  favorite  with  all  the  wild  young  men  who 
knew  him,  and  in  one  of  his  speeches,  delivered  after  he 
was  elected  to  the  Illinois  Legislature,  he  displeased 
some  of  these  young  bloods,  and  it  reached  his  ears.  He 
called  a  meeting  and  addressed  them,  saying  that  they 
had  made  him  what  he  was,  and  if  he  had  said  anything 
that  displeased  them  he  was  willing  for  them  to  take  him 
to  pieces  limb  by  limb. 


PETERSBURG,  1882. 


558  JOHN    BENNETT. 


I  CAME  to  Illinois  in  the  fall  of  1835,  and  in  January, 
1836,  located  in  Petersburg,  a  little  village  recently 
laid  out  on  the  Sangamon  river,  two  miles  north  of  Salem, 
Mr.  Lincoln's  home.  My  earliest  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Lincoln  commenced  in  February  of  that  year,  on  his 
return  home  from  Vandalia,  where  he  had  spent  the 
winter  as  a  member  of  the  legislature  from  Sangamon 
county.  Mr.  Lincoln  spent  the  most  of  the  month  of 
March  in  Petersburg,  finishing  up  the  survey  and  planning 
of  the  town  he  had  commenced  the  year  before,  and  I  was 
a  great  deal  in  his  company  and  formed  a  high  estimate 
of  his  worth  and  social  qualities,  which  was  strengthened 
by  many  years  of  subsequent  social  intercourse  and  busi- 
ness transactions,  finding  him  always  strictly  honest ;  in 
fact,  he  was  universally  spoken  of  in  this  region  as 
"  Honest  Abe."  After  Menard  county  was  formed  out  of 
a  portion  of  Sangamon  county,  and  the  county  seat 
established  at  Petersburg,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  regular 
attendant  at  the  courts,  and  as  I  was  then  keeping  a 
hotel,  he  was  one  of  my  regular  customers,  where  he  met 
many  of  his  old  cronies  of  his  early  days  at  Salem,  and 
they  uniformly  spent  the  most  of  the  nights  in  telling 
stories,  or  spinning  long  yarns,  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
very  fond.  In  the  early  settlement  of  this  community, 
when  a  stranger  came  to  settle  amongst  them,  it  was  their 
custom  to  try  him  on.  This  trying  on  was  to  ascertain 
what  he  was  made  of,  and  all  sorts  of  sports  were  resorted 
to,  such  as  running,  jumping,  wrestling  and  occasionally 
a  knock-down,  if  necessary.  In  all  these  sports,  Mr. 
Lincoln  not  only  proved  himself  a  match,  but  an  over 


JOHN    BENNETT.  559 

match  for  the  most  of  them,  and  they  at  on.:e  became  his 
fast  friends.  On  one  occasion,  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  a 
number  of  other  persons,  was  descending  the  Sangamon 
river  in  a  flat-boat.  The  boat  leaked  badly  and  took  in  a 
good  deal  of  water,  and  when  they  reached  the  Salem 
mill-dam,  the  water  was  not  high  enough  to  take  the  boat 
over  with  so  much  weight,  and  the  bow  ran  up  high  and 
dry  on  the  dam.  The  question  was,  What  was  to  be  done  ? 
Mr.  Lincoln  suggested  that  they  should  bore  a  hole  in 
the  bottom  of  the  boat  and  lighten  it  by  letting  the  water 
out.  This  was  a  novel  idea,  but  the  hole  was  bored  in 
the  bow,  and  all  hands  went  to  that  end,  which  raised  the 
stern  ;  the  water  flowed  to  the  bow  and  passed  off  through 
the  hole,  and  the  boat  went  over  the  dam  in  safety. 

On  another  occasion,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  and  some  of 
his  friends  were  visiting  a  neighbor,  a  very  large,  fleshy, 
rough  and  uncouth  old  woman  came  in  and  seated  her- 
self on  one  of  those  old-fashioned,  straight-backed,  split- 
bottomed  chairs,  leaned  back,  balancing  herself  on  the 
hind  legs  and  rocking  to  and  fro,  and  telling  of  every- 
thing going  on  in  the  neighborhood  (for  she  knew  every- 
body's business),  Mr.  Lincoln  was  sitting  near,  and  being 
always  fond  of  a  joke,  he  couldn't  withstand  the  tempta- 
tion, and  slyly  put  his  foot  under  the  front  round  of  the 
chair  and  upset  her.  She  fell  in  such  a  position  that  she 
could  not  extricate  herself  without  his  assistance ;  what 
followed  can  better  be  imagined  than  described. 


PETERSBURG,  1882. 


560  E.     C.     POMEROY. 


THAT  Mr.  Lincoln  was  an  eminently  good  man — 
that  he  was  really  great  in  all  the  moral  aspects  of 
human  character,  is  very  widely  if  not  universally  conced- 
ed. That  he  was  equally  great  from  the  purely  intellec- 
tual point  of  view,  has  been  spoken  of  with  more  reserve. 
It  was  not  unnatural,  therefore,  that  his  extraordinary  suc- 
cess in  political  life,  obtained  as  it  was  without  resort  to 
the  crafty  methods  of  the  mere  politician,  and  without 
the  usual  personal  solicitation  by  himself  in  his  own  be- 
half, should  have  been  regarded  by  many  as  something 
of  a  mystery — especially  when  considered  in  connection 
with  the  fact  that  he  was  not  supposed  to  be  an  educated 
man.  His  success  was  largely  due,  no  doubt,  to  his  re- 
markable sagacity  in  determining  the  condition  of  the 
public  mind,  and  in  reading  the  signs  of  the  times.  He 
seemed  to  have  a  special  gift  in  this  direction.  Perhaps 
it  was  intuition,  but  so  largely  developed  in  his  case  as 
to  be  almost  equivalent  to  a  separate  mental  endowment, 
giving  him,  as  it  were,  one  faculty  more  than  other  men 
have,  and  bestowing  upon  him  a  corresponding  advan- 
tage over  his  contemporaries.  But  that  he  was  intellec- 
tually great,  aside  from  this,  is  one  of  the  most  conspicu- 
ous facts  of  his  life.  And  it  is  clearly  evident  from  the 
circumstances  in  which  he  was  placed,  during  the  most 
important  period  of  his  political  career— being  the  leader 
alike  of  a  new  party  and  a  new  thought — that  he  could 
not  have  succeeded  nor  laid  a  foundation  for  success,  if 
this  had  not  been  a  fact  in  his  favor.  Whatever  he  may 


E     C.     POMEROY.  56i 

have  lacked  in  the  way  of  education  or  scholarship,  he 
certainly  did  not  lack  knowledge,  or  the  ability  to  acquire 
knowledge  to  any  extent  needed  at  any  time  when  want- 
ed, nor  the  intelligence  and  skill  necessary  to  use  it  to  the 
best  possible  advantage.  There  are  thousands  of  educa- 
ted men  who  would  rejoice  to  have  this  same  power,  but 
have  it  not.  Such  talent  as  this,  in  the  field  of  duty  to 
which  he  was  called,  was  an  ample  substitute  for  the 
scholarship  he  did  not- have,  and  out  of  this  talent  came 
the  giant  forces  which  wrought  his  success.  With  these 
at  his  command,  no  difficulties  embarrassed  him,  no  emer- 
gencies found  him  unprepared,  he  made  no  mistakes,  and 
met  with  no  failures. 

In  the  stirring  Illinois  campaign  which  brought  him  to 
the  front  as  champion  of  freedom,  and  which  resulted 
two  years  later  in  making  him  the  nominee  of  his  party 
for  the  Presidential  office,  he  manifested  capabilities  equal 
to  the  highest  and  the  best.  The  country  was  filled  with 
able  men  at  that  time,  men  noted  for  great  learning,  elo 
quence,  skill  in  debate,  and  wisdom  of  management,  but 
it  is  not  likely  that  any  one  could  have  been  selected  from 
among  them  all,  who  would  have  gone  through  that  cam- 
paign, in  his  place,  with  a  success  and  brilliancy  equal  to 
his.  And  yet  the  performance  did  not  seem  to  be  in  any 
way  difficult  or  extraordinary  for  him.  It  was  only  in 
keeping — except  as  to  its  greater  importance,  and  the 
greater  excitement  attending  it — with  all  his  former  ef- 
forts in  the  political  field.  Without  pretending  to  be  an 
orator,  he  swayed  the  multitudes  by  his  eloquence  as  the 
tempest  stirs  the  sea  ;  and  vanquished  his  opponents  in 
debate  with  the  same  easy  grace  and  irresistible  force  of 

30 


562  E.     C.     POMEROY. 

logic  with  which  lesser  fields  had  been  won,  and  which 
lesser  foes  had  been  taught  to  respect  in  the  less  trying 
situations  of  the  past,  and  which  all  parties,  friends  and 
foes  alike,  were  destined  to  admire.  He  wrought  with- 
out malice  ;  without  personal  animosity  towards  anybody ; 
simply  for  his  love  of  the  right,  and  his  hatred  of  the 
wrong,  as  matters  of  principle ;  and  won  the  respect  of 
all  by  the  fairness  and  candor  and  good  temper  with 
which  his  work  was  done.  With  pleasant  smiles,  and 
keen  wit,  and  unanswerable  argument,  he  cleared  the  path 
before  him,  for  himself  and  his  party,  and  pointed  the 
way  to  a  higher  and  better  life  for  the  nation  ;  and  then, 
stepping  quickly  to  the  front,  led  the  nation  on  to 
take  possession  of  and  permanently  occupy  that  higher 
ground.  And  this  was  essentially  his  own  work  from  be- 
ginning to  end.  He  started  it,  and  kept  with  it  all  the 
way  through,  as  the  most  capable  and  efficient  worker  of 
all,  and  finally  finished  it  at  the  end.  A  nobler  exhibition 
of  mental  supremacy  and  magnificent  success,  in  the  politi- 
cal field,  has  not  been  seen  on  this  earth.  This  is  a  strong 
statement,  but  it  is  no  doubt  a  perfectly  truthful  one. 
If  there  are  men  now  living  who  would  withhold  from  him 
this  large  credit  for  intellectual  greatness,  let  them  explain 
how,  from  the  condition  of  helpless  poverty  in  which  he  was 
born,  and  in  which  he  continued  through  all  the  years  of 
childhood  and  youth,  he  could  come  to  be  the  master-spirit 
of  the  nation,  and  to  hold  its  highest  position  of  official 
trust  and  power  with  such  transcendent  ability  and  faultless 
wisdom,  through  the  most  trying  ordeal  any  nation  or  any 
ruler  of  a  nation  has  ever  experienced  ;  and  do  all  this 
without  aid  from  any  outside  source  except  such  as  he 


E.     C.    POMEROY.  563 

created  for  himself  and  drew  unto  himself  by  his  own  ef- 
forts alone,  as  he  advanced.  His  known  integrity  and 
goodness  of  heart  were,  of  course,  strong  elements  of  pop- 
ularity, but  such  success  as  this  cannot  be  rationally  ac- 
counted for  without  including  among  its  causes  that  most 
indispensable  one  of  all — great  intellectual  ability.  If  we 
call  it  wisdom,  it  means  the  same  thing. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  profound  admirer  of  our  great  men 
of  the  past.  He  studied  their  lives  and  made  himself 
minutely  acquainted  with  their  characters,  and  became 
one  of  the  noblest  defenders  of  their  work.  Particularly 
is  this  true  with  regard  to  the  men  of  the  Revolution. 
He  had  imbibed  their  very  spirit.  The  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  the  light  which  lighted  him  on  his  po- 
litical way.  He  believed  in  it  as  sincerely  and  devoutly 
as  he  believed  in  his  Bible.  Its  principles  to  him  were  as 
sacred  as  any  earthly  thing  could  be.  He  regarded  them 
as  of  divine  origin.  And  now,  when  he  found  that  noble 
instrument  assailed  by  gifted  northern  orators,  and 
sneered  at  and  ridiculed  as  containing  nothing  but  "glit- 
tering generalities,"  and  determined  efforts  being  made  to 
destroy  its  influence  over  the  public  mind,  in  order  to 
make  more  room  for  slavery,  he  was  naturally  roused 
with  indignation  and  inspired  with  eloquence  in  its  de- 
fense. He  came  to  its  defense  with  a  magnanimity  and 
power  no  other  man  has  shown.  It  would  not  be  diffi- 
cult to  prove,  if  there  were  time  and  space,  that  he  really 
possessed  many  of  the  leading  characteristics  of  our  great 
men  of  the  past,  more,  perhaps,  than  has  been  manifested 
by  any  other  single  American.  At  the  same  time,  he  was 
wholly  unlike  them  all  in  his  intellectual  methods — as 


564  £•     C.     POMEROY. 

well  as  in  his  personal  appearance — and  was  not  equal  to 
any  one  of  them,  probably,  in  those  educational  advanta- 
ges that  come  from  the  schools.  But  his  great  soul,  man- 
ifesting itself  by  great  deeds,  has  won  for  him  a  reputa- 
tion and  fame  superior  to  all  other  Americans,  with  the 
single  exception,  perhaps,  of  Washington — and  he  stands 
before  the  world  an  illustrious  example  of  human  great- 
ness, creditable  alike  to  the  men  who  created  the  govern- 
ment and  to  the  government  which  they  created.  They 
made  it  possible  for  such  a  man  to  be  produced  ;  and  he 
is  without  any  exception  the  grandest  fruit  of  their  deep 
political  foresight.  He  was  wholly  American,  and 
wholly  a  United  States  American,  of  the  purest  and  best 
type :  a  broad-minded,  big-hearted,  genial-tempered  prod- 
uct of  the  prairies :  with  a  love  of  country  and  of  free- 
dom and  of  man  a  thousand  times  more  boundless  than 
the  prairies, — as  boundless  as  humanity.  With  such  en- 
dowments of  mind  and  such  attributes  of  character,  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  could  move  men  as  they 
had  never  been  moved  before  ;  nor  is  it  a  matter  of  won- 
der to  those  who  believe  in  an  overruling  Providence  that 
fits  the  man  for  the  hour  and  the  hour  for  the  man,  in  the 
great  concerns  of  earth,  that  at  his  chief  advent  into  pub- 
lic life,  the  time  had  come  for  them  to  be  so  moved. 

A  country  that  has  produced  two  such  men  as  Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln  during  the  first  century  of  its  exist- 
ence--besides  the  large  number  of  other  great  men  neces- 
sarily implied  in  the  production  of  these  two-  can  afford  to 
be  well  satisfied  with  its  laurels.  Washington,  the  Father 
of  Liberty  and  the  Founder  of  the  Republic ;  Lincoln, 
the  Father  of  Freedom  and  the  Preserver  of  the  Re- 


E.     C.    POMEROY.  565 

public : — these  might  not  improperly  be  distinguishing 
titles  of  these  distinguished  men.  No  brighter  names 
than  theirs  shine  out  from  the  pages  of  history,  in  ancient 
or  modern  times.  The  united  voice  of  the  country,  and 
of  all  countries,  has  given  to  Washington  his  proper 
place,  where  he  will  stand,  bathed  in  glory,  forever.  Lin- 
coln's time  has  not  yet  come.  It  is  too  early  for  him  to 
take  his  right  place  in  the  undivided  opinion  of  the  world. 
Another  generation  must  pass — perhaps  many  genera- 
tions— before  he  can  be  seen  by  all  alike  and  in  his  true 
light.  When  the  asperities  of  the  war  are  all  gone,  and 
the  memory  of  its  bitterness  has  faded  from  the  minds  of 
men,  and  the  prejudices  excited  by  its  passions  are  at  an 
end — when  the  animosities  engendered  by  party  strife  are 
forgotten,  and  when  the  losses  caused  by  the  war  to  the 
present  generation  are  found  to  be  an  immense  gain  in 
the  future,  as  they  certainly  will  be — when  all  of  these 
ameliorated  conditions,  in  so  far  as  they  relate  to  him, 
shall  have  been  reached — then  the  memory  of  his  great 
deeds  and  pure  life  and  noble  character  will  take  posses- 
sion of  men's  minds  to  the  exclusion  of  their  former  false 
views  and  errors,  and  thus  being  able  to  look  upon  him 
with  unclouded  sight,  they  will  behold  him  exactly  as  he 
was,  and  as  he  will  continue  to  be  in  reputation,  one  of 
the  greatest  of  earth's  great  men. 

The  divine  oversight  and  guidance  of  earthly  affairs  is 
nowhere  more  manifest  than  in  that  portion  of  our 
national  history  which  relates  to  slavery.  The  nation 
has  been  punished,  as  it  deserved  to  be,  for  tolerating 
the  hideous  wrong.  The  oppressed  race  has  been  bene- 
fited, as  was  right  that  it  should  be,  by  the  continuance 


566  E.     C.     POMEROY. 

of  that  wrung.  1  he  emancipated  slave  comes  from  his 
bondage  better  fitted  for  the  duties  of  civilization  and  bet- 
ter capable  of  self-support  and  self-improvement  than  any 
other  equal  number  of  his  race.  Shall  he  not  share  these 
advantages  with  the  less-favored  portion  of  his  people  ? 
Shall  he  not  be  a  missionary  to  his  fellows  of  the  "  dark 
continent,"  still  suffering  under  a  bondage  more  crushing 
and  cruel  than  that  from  which  he  himself  has  been 
freed  ?  The  bondage  of  ignorance  and  superstition  by 
which  they  are  enslaved  is  a  bondage  from  which  they 
cannot  be  emancipated  by  proclamation,  but  only  by  slow 
growth  in  knowledge  through  generations  of  instruction. 
Their  period  of  instruction  will  come  and  growth  in 
knowledge  follow  as  one  of  the  fruits,  in  part  at  least,  of 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation  issued  by  Mr.  Lincoln ; 
and  in  so  far  as  they  shall  then  be  liberated  from  the 
gross  barbarism  in  which  they  are  sunk,  the  credit  of  their 
improved  condition  must  proportionally  be  attributed  to 
the  same  cause,  and  will  in  like  proportion  enhance  the 
glory  of  that  great  act. 

The  far-reaching  beneficence  of  this  great  man's  life 
character  and  services  cannot  now  be  realized.  Believers 
in  the  world's  ultimate  redemption  from  evil  may  picture 
to  themselves  the  golden  glories  of  that  millennial  era  and 
rejoice  in  the  contemplation  of  its  purity  and  peace,  but 
this  is  the  work  of  the  imagination.  Not  till  the  era 
comes  shall  its  real  brightness  be  seen,  and  not  till  then 
shall  there  be  men  wise  enough  to  trace  the  blessed  in- 
fluences by  which  it  was  brought  about, — not  till  then 
shall  the  full  measure  of  his  greatness  be  known  to  the 
children  of  earth. 


E.     C.     POMEROY.  567 

When  the  freedman  shall  have  come  to  his  own  and 
can  speak  for  himself  and  his  race  with  an  applauding 
world  to  listen,  men  will  look  back  over  the  landmarks  of 
human  progress,  recalling  the  mighty  agencies  by  which 
the  grand  result  was  achieved,  and  nowhere  shall  they  find, 
in  the  long,  bright  vista  of  their  vision,  a  glory  more  brilliant 
and  beautiful  and  pure  than  that  which  rests  upon  the 
name  and  hallows  the  fame  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


BUFFALO,  1882. 


568  ANDREW    BO  YD. 


I  AM  glad  to  be  recorded  with  the  many  as  one  who 
had  great  love  for  Mr.  Lincoln  ;  who  reveres  his 
name  and  memory,  and  who  believes  that  God  gave  him 
to  us  for  the  crisis  we  were  to  pass  through  ;  to  lead  us 
successfully  through  that  four  years  of  terrible  civil  war 
into  the  bright  sunlight  of  a  blessed  peace,  the  early 
dawn  only  of  which  he  was  permitted  to  see,  when  he 
was  cruelly  and  brutally  murdered  during  an  evening  of 
recreation.  We  question  if  there  was  ever  a  man  holding 
public  office  in  our  country  who  received  more  blame 
and  more  praise  than  Abraham  Lincoln  while  President ; 
but  when  he  died  the  nation  staggered  under  the  sad  in- 
telligence ;  a  cry  of  unfeigned  sorrow  went  up  from  every 
loyal  breast ;  even  enemies  had  pity  in  their  hearts  ;  and 
from  almost  every  hamlet  throughout  the  world  came  ex- 
pressions of  sympathy  for  the  loss  of  our  good  President. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  kind  and  forgiving  nature  should  never  be 
called  in  question.  It  was  like  unto  the  following : 
"  Then  Peter  came  to  him  and  said,  Lord,  how  oft  shall 
my  brother  sin  against  me  and  I  forgive  him  ?  Till  seven 
times?  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  say  not  unto  thee  until 
seven  times,  but  until  seventy  times  seven"  I  believe  the 
answer  which  Jesus  made  to  have  been  the  ruling  spirit 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  towards  his  fellow-beings — friends  or 
enemies :  for  he  said,  with  malice  towards  none,  with 
charity  for  all. 

He  was  pure-hearted  and  pure-minded.     There  were 
times,  perhaps,  in  our  impatience  we  thought  him  wrong, 


ANDREW    BO  YD.  569 

and  wished  him  to  do  different ;  but  the  result  showed 
that  he  was  about  right,  and  did  things  at  the  proper 
time  for  the  benefit  of  all  concerned.  It  is  not  likely 
that  any  man  could  have  filled  his  place  during  the  try- 
ing time  he  was  President,  perhaps,  without  erring — with- 
out displeasing  many  ;  and  it  is  certainly  beyond  doubt 
that  but  few  would  have  been  as  conscientiously  just  as  he. 
Who  would  have  been  more  faithful  ?  He  stood  like  the 
noble  pine,  that  can  bend  before  the  storm  but  will  not 
break.  "He  stood  when  others  fell!"  No  matter  who 
was  discouraged,  it  was  not  for  him  to  be  disheartened  ; 
or,  at  least,  to  show  it.  How  well  did  he  try  to  conceal 
the  burden  he  had  to  bear ;  wearing  a  smile,  and  telling  a 
story  to  forget  his  own  sorrow,  and  to  cheer  up  the  timid 
and  desponding.  Mr.  Lincoln  has  spoken  and  written 
some  of  the  finest  sentences  to  be  found  in  our  language. 
His  speech  at  Gettysburg,  and  portions  of  his  inaugurals, 
are  very  superior.  A  few  words  of  his  last  inaugural, 
although  written  in  prose,  are  really  in  rhyme. 

"  Fondly  do  we  hope, 

Fervently  do  we  pray, 
That  this  mighty  scourge  of  war 
May  speedily  pass  away,  &c.,  &c." 

Many  of  his  speeches  abound  with  fine,  tender,  poetic 
expression.  His  little  off-hand  good-bye  address  to  his 
old  friends  when  leaving  Springfield  in  1861  is  full  of 
deep  pathos,  and  will  never  be  forgotten. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  with  his  pen — and  that  was  law — gave 
freedom  to  4,000,000  of  colored  slaves.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
not  looked  up  to  with  any  degree  of  awe  or  reverence  as 


570  ANDREW    BO  YD. 

some  great  men  have  been ;  but  he  was  respected  and 
truly  beloved  by  the  masses  of  the  people  for  his  hon- 
esty and  justness  to  all ;  for  his  amiable  temper  and  dis- 
position ;  for  his  great  kindness  of  heart;  and  for  his  un- 
swerving integrity  to  the  principles  of  free  government, 
and  the  honor  of  his  country.  He  was  really  one  of  the 
people,  was  for  the  people,  and  stood  by  the  people.  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  half-brother  to  mercy  and  justice.  Without 
the  rank,  which  is  but  the  "guinea's  stamp,"  he  was  pure 
gold ;  and  from  an  apparently  poor  and  humble  sphere, 
be  bounded  at  one  leap  in  history  to  the  side  of  Wash- 
ington. Both  these  great  men  showed  their  virtue  and 
wisdom  through  a  thundering  life — or  death — struggle  of 
our  country.  The  rising  generation  will  outdo  us  in  ap- 
preciation of  his  character.  The  charm  that  lingers 
about  the  name  of  the  immortal  Washington  as  the  Father 
of  our  Country,  will  also  surround  that  of  honest  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  as  its  Saviour. 


SYRACUSE,  1882. 


LUCY    LARCOM.  57r 


TOLLING. 

(April  15,  1865.) 

TOLLING,  tolling,  tolling! 
All  the  bells  of  the  land  ! 
Lo,  the  patriot  martyr 

Taketh  his  journey  grand  ! 
Travels  into  the  ages, 

Bearing  a  hope  how  dear  ! 
Into  life's  unknown  vistas, 
Liberty's  great  pioneer. 

Tolling,  tolling,  tolling  ! 

See,  they  come  as  a  cloud, 
Hearts  of  a  mighty  people, 

Bearing  his  pall  and  shroud  ; 
Lifting  up,  like  a  banner, 

Signals  of  loss  and  woe  ; 
Wonder  of  breathless  nations, 

Moveth  the  solemn  show. 

Tolling,  tolling,  tolling ! 

Was  it,  O  man  beloved, 
Was  it  thy  funeral  only 

Over  the  land  that  moved? 
Veiled  by  that  hour  of  anguish, 

Borne  with  the  rebel  rout 
Forth  into  utter  darkness, 

Slavery's  corse  went  out. 


BOSTON,  1882. 


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